Ability to speak languages

[Guest pandas16]

Anyone else with PANDAS find this- that they learn languages super easily but had a really difficult time with math? I'm learning a 5th without a problem yet when it comes to word problems... even the simplest ones.. or directions. I just am completely horrible.

 

 

Also.. can play songs on piano that I hear on the radio without any music.. just by ear.

Edited July 27, 2011 by pandas16

[emmalily]

Actually, yeah. I'm not fluent, but I've taken several years each of French, Spanish and Latin, and several courses in American Sign Language and managed straight A's in them all...I pick them up really quickly, but then tend to lose them after a few months without practice.

 

I also had a difficult time with math during PANDAS exacerbation but had been pretty good at it before that. But that seems like a pretty typical thing with PANDAS...

 

Don't know what that would all mean exactly...but interesting that we've both experienced that.

[emmalily]

Oo, that's great you're doing that! I'd love to help but I'm definitely not even close to fluent right now; I haven't practiced either in about five years. With the Latin, I could probably do it, but I doubt there's any need for that haha.

 

Very cool about your embassy job--hope it goes well for you!

[MMC]

I am awful in math as well. I wish I was better, b/c I could have graduated with a decent degree, but had to change to speech communication. My foreign language skills are currently not that great, but I did well in my foregin language classes in college. I was best in language arts, writing, etc. Both my children have PANDAS, and we have noticed their math skills dropping...especially ds13. This is discouraging b/c he was very good in math before onset of PANDAS at age 10. We know PANDAS has caused ADD/ADHD for him. He was fine before. For some reason, the hardest subject to concentrate on with PANDAS induced ADD/ADHD is math. I also stunk at chemistry. So, any type of quantitative problem solving has been a challenge. I somehow managed to get through minimum Algebra/Trig in college, with the help of a tutor. At least, I don't have problems balancing a checkbook, or understanding basic busines math. It's the upper level stuff that just took too much concentration.

[emmalily]

Thanks emmalily and MMC I can do math & get the right answer I just have no idea how & why it's right. I got A's all through college even in advanced math but when I get things right- it just makes no sense in my brain.

 

Ah, same with me--that's why teachers could never believe I was having trouble because most of the time I was doing well--I just had no idea how/why/what was going on. There's a serious mental block going on there for me that there never was before age 14 (onset of more serious symptoms).

 

Did you get the math theory but not the execution? I was always fine with theory (loved physics!) but when I tried to work out the problems everything seemed to get tangled up.

[MomWithOCDSon]

Pandas16, Emmalilly and MMC --

 

Thanks so much for your commentary . . . more regarding math than languages, I'll admit. Not to hijack, but you guys have collectively given me a true "lightbulb moment."

 

My DS, especially during exacerbation, but to some degree outside it as well, moans that he's done the problems, but he doesn't know HOW he did them. It's almost as though it comes so naturally to him, that he does it automatically but then he gets distressed that, because he didn't have to actively "think through" each step to the solution, he either hasn't done it right (though 99% of the time, he has) or that he doesn't understand what he did and couldn't repeat his success if asked to do it again. It's the darnedest thing!

 

What support for me to be able to tell him that there's more folks out there like him! Hopefully, it'll help him relax a little and actually ENJOY this gift he has! Thanks!

[lynn]

You know that certainly sheds some light on a few arguments that DH and DS have had. DH would try to make DS go through problems and explain why each step was done, and DS never could, so DH would become angry and accuse DS of guessing. Even without this byplay, DS' ability to explain math has certainly gone way down since the big exascerbation last year. He is fluent in Lithuanian because that is all my MIL speaks to him, but his Spanish was really bad last year--short term memory problems plus too anxious to study.

[emmalily]

I love that others are experiencing this! (well, not that we have to be experiencing it, but that it's a common thing and not just me).

 

It reminds me of arguments I had with my sophomore and junior math teachers that would go something like this:

 

"I understand that you keep saying it's an irrational number and that I should just plug it into the equation, but why is it irrational?"

 

"It's irrational because it's...irrational."

 

"But why is it irrational?"

 

"Because it is."

 

"But I don't understand why I should treat it differently than any other number."

 

"Just plug it into the equation, you'll do fine."

 

This same conversation was repeated with Pi and imaginary numbers (don't get me started on those!).

 

A serious mental block on it for sure. They never got that I didn't understand meaning of things, even if I got the concept and the general idea on how to play out a problem.

Edited July 28, 2011 by emmalily

[Worried_Dad]

Add our ds to this list. He does well in math again (now that PANDAS is under control) but agonizes over any problem that requires he "show his work.". He can get the answers right but cannot for the life of him explain how.

 

Don't recall him having this issue BP (Before PANDAS).... ;-)

 

P.S.: he also loves languages (other than English) and is learning Japanese right now!

Edited July 28, 2011 by Worried Dad

[dcmom]

Worried Dad- I would say my dd 11 has similar experience. She has always been good at math, ahead of what they are doing in class- so if there was a deterioration- we did not notice. BUT- not sure if it is an ocd thing, or a math mind block thing- she complains and has issues if she has to do the work in a specific way and show the work. She almost has to do the problems, then go back and create the "work".

 

I would say, however, that her spelling REALLY suffered. In second grade she was one of the top two spellers in the class, teacher made up a harder list for her and other child. Fourth grade pandas hit- she did fine in school, but my concern with school work was on the back burner. Starting fifth grade- her English teacher said she excelled in writing, but her spelling needed a lot of work. I was floored- but looked at her stuff and it was true. Now at the end of fifth- it has gotten better.

 

Spelling can be a disgraphia issue- basal ganglia!!

 

These issues are why it is SO important to treat aggressively medically, and NOT just medicate psych symptoms. So few, even pandas sympathetic docs, really get this. (preaching to the choir- I know).

[dcmom]

Oh and BTW- pandas hit my little on in K, age 5. By the end of K she could only write 1- 10. the teens were a disaster, and many numbers were backward. She had pex in Oct of first grade (nothing had improved yet with the number writing)- and literally the day after she came home from the hospital I asked her to write 1 to 100- and she did it PERFECTLY.

 

Also- we had spent a lot of the summer trying to get the days of the week down, in order. Couldn't do it- week after pex- told them to me (without me saying first) and never had a problem since.

 

Unbelievable- right?

[mkur]

My ds was strong in math and average in languages until he became chronic and lost a lot of his ability to focus and remember. My dyslexic non-pandas son is stronger in math and science and weaker in languages. This is not the "norm" for sped kids at their school.