Post by ellyodd on Dec 19, 2004 15:45:30 GMT -5
I wrote this in the adults with ld-forum at ldonline.com a couple of months ago, but no one really wrote anything about people's reaction... So I thought I would try it out here 
I have a question for you; how do people react when you tell them you have dyscalculia?
In Denmark, dyscalculia is also called “number blind” – dyslexia is known as “word blind” so dyscalculia has been named something alike. Because of that, a lot of people with dyscalculia walk around saying that they are number blind, without knowing that it exists, as a way to explain their difficulties. I did too! But people just laughed. It said it as a joke, because I didn’t know about it, so that’s why they laughed. Now that I know that this number blindness-thing is for real, and I tell people about it, they just say something like “well it seems logic enough, that when you can be word blind you can also be number blind”. A couple of people still laugh because they don’t believe me, but that’s just ignorance.
Christa, who is the “head” of the dyscalculia association that I volunteer for, has some grim stories about people’s reaction. I remember one, that was about a psychotherapist who had made a website were he wrote that people who had dyscalculia also was retards. GrrRrrHH! I’m not a freaking retard… I have no hard feelings for so-called retards, besides hating that word. I grew up with these “retards” at my special school (there is nothing wrong with me besides growing up with this undiscovered ld and the problems with people around me who didn’t understand my difficulties and thought I was just a “problem child”). But I do have the ability to take care of myself (and actually most of these “retards” can take care of themselves, with the right help, like in group homes without people taking care of them all the time – and the ones who cant are people to). But when people hear that word, they think the craziest things, and a freaking psychotherapist (I don’t know what the laws are in America and other countries, but in Denmark anyone can be a psychotherapist and there is no “top dog” keeping an eye on these people) should NOT be talking about stuff he doesn’t know ANYTHING about. It is true that many “retards” have a hard time in math, from acalculia, but that is not the same thing as dyscalculia. Then people with dyslexia would be retards too, and then 15% of the world would be retards… Also, a lot of people with acalculia aren’t “retards”; they have just been in an accident but can do other things normal. And even if you cant do anything normal, you are NOT a retard. Like I have said before, in my dictionary, “retard” is a word for sick people like Hitler; no one else deserves that title.
By the way, the psychotherapist deleted the website after Christa had contacted him and yelled a little :-p
I have a question for you; how do people react when you tell them you have dyscalculia?
In Denmark, dyscalculia is also called “number blind” – dyslexia is known as “word blind” so dyscalculia has been named something alike. Because of that, a lot of people with dyscalculia walk around saying that they are number blind, without knowing that it exists, as a way to explain their difficulties. I did too! But people just laughed. It said it as a joke, because I didn’t know about it, so that’s why they laughed. Now that I know that this number blindness-thing is for real, and I tell people about it, they just say something like “well it seems logic enough, that when you can be word blind you can also be number blind”. A couple of people still laugh because they don’t believe me, but that’s just ignorance.
Christa, who is the “head” of the dyscalculia association that I volunteer for, has some grim stories about people’s reaction. I remember one, that was about a psychotherapist who had made a website were he wrote that people who had dyscalculia also was retards. GrrRrrHH! I’m not a freaking retard… I have no hard feelings for so-called retards, besides hating that word. I grew up with these “retards” at my special school (there is nothing wrong with me besides growing up with this undiscovered ld and the problems with people around me who didn’t understand my difficulties and thought I was just a “problem child”). But I do have the ability to take care of myself (and actually most of these “retards” can take care of themselves, with the right help, like in group homes without people taking care of them all the time – and the ones who cant are people to). But when people hear that word, they think the craziest things, and a freaking psychotherapist (I don’t know what the laws are in America and other countries, but in Denmark anyone can be a psychotherapist and there is no “top dog” keeping an eye on these people) should NOT be talking about stuff he doesn’t know ANYTHING about. It is true that many “retards” have a hard time in math, from acalculia, but that is not the same thing as dyscalculia. Then people with dyslexia would be retards too, and then 15% of the world would be retards… Also, a lot of people with acalculia aren’t “retards”; they have just been in an accident but can do other things normal. And even if you cant do anything normal, you are NOT a retard. Like I have said before, in my dictionary, “retard” is a word for sick people like Hitler; no one else deserves that title.
By the way, the psychotherapist deleted the website after Christa had contacted him and yelled a little :-p
