I will need to look up the reference, but there was a study done that showed individuals with autism preform better in mathematics. The study showed that the individuals with autism use more of their brain when they are doing math. Specifically, they used areas of the brain typically devoted to facial mapping. Being better at math is not necessarily a bad thing, and as a parent I love that while my child could have problems with making eye contact at least he is getting something else that is good in exchange.
As someone who struggles with math I was one of the first people to go “what the ____ is this” when I saw common core strategies. As someone trying to work toward their Ph.D. I had such problems with math that I needed to resolve to be successful I decided to start all over. Basically, I was convinced I had missed the secret “rosetta stone” of math that would explain everything. Blew through first grade, second grade, but this time I was learning it with common core. The way I was brought up you were told how to solve the problem, but not why it worked that way. Some people can do this fine, but the people who are really good at math understand why it works and find the way that works best for them. The moment of clarity between understanding those who were good at math and people like me came when I had the “ah ha” moment and excitedly told my husband “Oh my God, I get math!”
As I explain to my husband (autistic) this new amazing understanding of how math worked, instead of just how to solve it, his response to me was “ya and.” I was thrown for a loop, “What do you mean, ya and, were you taught this in school?” His response floored me, “No, I just figured it out for myself.” The genius math autistic husband admitted it was never something he was taught in school he just saw the patterns and figured it out.
Now my husband had tried to tutor me in math before, but it was such common sense to him and his communication skills not being the most refined in the world this was completely ineffective. When I showed him some of the common core math sheets my son was working on, and those I give to my older students, for the first time he could not give a good answer to a math problem. Why? Because common core requires you to learn how the engine works and then explain it back in words. They require a student to prove they understand the relationship in a linguistic format. Since most children with autism have problems in this area, suddenly an area of academics they did amazing in suddenly becomes a challenge.
For example, I just asked my husband why 5-2=3 in words. His answer was a general restatement of the problem. “Well, if you have 5 and take away 2 you have 3 left.” When I tried to get him to explain it in a different way he couldn’t. Finally, he resorted to saying “We decided that the word five is a symbol for a predetermined amount…” at which point I cut him off as I saw him struggling. I then said out loud a verbal way to explain why 5-2=3. “Five is a number representing a fixed point when you travel two units away from five you end up at three, because it is an expression measuring the distance between two numbers.” I would never expect a elementary student to say it that way, but me and my husband are both adults so I gave a more complete answer. Once I said it he agreed, but it was something he knew as images in his mind and he was not able to come up with the words to express the concept.
Those with autism often think in pictures. Normal people fall on a spectrum between visual and verbal thinking. Personally, I am mostly all verbal if I have to think in pictures I close my eyes, furrow my brow, and need total silence and concentration to be able to do it. For me hearing what it means in words completed the gap that was missing for me. However, what happens to these autistic children who don’t think in words. It reverses the problem, and suddenly those who frankly may be the best at math are getting worse grades in math because they are unable to verbalize what they already know how to do. It is like taking a master wood worker and failing him at a wood working class because he could not put down in an essay how to wood work.
What to do
This is the biggest challenge as a parent and as an educator. Common core is new, and it has excellent results with the majority of children so it is probably going to be around for a long time. Parents do not always understand it, and often teachers don’t because it was poorly implemented and when you don’t understand something it is hard to fight it. Worse, schools have to cater to the average, so these policies become the standard because they work for the majority. As a parent you can talk to your child’s teachers but the teachers have to uphold the standard. It maybe hard, but the best thing a parent can do is to take the time out to work with their child on developing that language. Work with specialist in this area that might be able to help your child like your ABA therapist. If you see your child is good at math but doesn’t have the words to express it bring it up and get it as a focus area on their IEP. It is really good to do this as soon as you see this is a problem to so it does not become a problem that gets progressively worse. Also contact people in charge of educational reform. I do believe common core is a great thing, and with the aversion to common core being so wide spread make sure your letters stand out. Bring up things like having research done in alternative testing criteria for students with language difficulties, or having more research done in high-functioning autism and common core to find a workable alternative solution for the problem.