LD=learning disabled? If you're gifted and LD, I just take that to mean that the giftedness is a symptom of your non-standard brain wiring, which seems to be all that's needed some days for a kid to pick up the LD label. "Little Johnny doesn't do well on the test the other kids are taking." "That's because Little Johnny has deduced the theoretical underpinnings of the questions that are being asked, seen the logical flaws, and is sitting there wondering WTF?"

If you're gifted and LD, I just take that to mean that the giftedness is a symptom of your non-standard brain wiring, which seems to be all that's needed some days for a kid to pick up the LD label. "Little Johnny doesn't do well on the test the other kids are taking." "That's because Little Johnny has deduced the theoretical underpinnings of the questions that are being asked, seen the logical flaws, and is sitting there wondering WTF?"

More like, Little Johnny Tests High, but flubs every piece of homework, because Little Johnny has no sense of the passage of time, gets obsessed over weird and small details, and suffers from both hyperfocus and an utter lack of focus, depending on the task.

Little Johnny feels like s/he is disappointing everyone around, why won't you live up to your potential? and is halfway to an ulcer from the stress of it all when Little Johnny discovers, no, that's not normal, your brain's just peculiar in ways that make it harder to function at some tasks.

Not that Little Johnny is bitter about the years spent assuming s/he was just lazy/undermotivated/whatthefuckever or anything like that. Oh no. S/he is thrilled about it. Honestly.

t loves Plei

no sense of the passage of time, gets obsessed over weird and small details, and suffers from both hyperfocus and an utter lack of focus, depending on the task

That... sounds rather like me. Hm.

arch supports

are evil, imho. Every foot doctor has insisted I wear them because I have flat feet, but they hurt. The more "supportive" a shoe is, the more likely it is to hurt and throw off my gait. I go shoeless whenever I can.

Or, in my case: Me, age 8 or so. Ask me, "I'm making this recipe that calls for 1/2 cup of flour, but I want to make three times the recipe, how much should I use?" and I could tell you to fill up the 1 cup measure once and the 1/2 cup measure once, or the 1/2 cup measure 3 times. Ask me what 6+7 is, and I'll most likely just pick some random number between 10 and 15.

I've also always had issues with writing stuff by hand, which has confused tons of tests. I've gotten better at it, but in elementary school, if you told me to write about something and gave me a piece of paper and a pencil, and then told me to write about something and gave me a computer or typewriter, the typed thing would show a much higher level of language usage than the handwritten thing would.

I've got dyscalculia, Connie. Can't speak for anyone else's, but I'd count it as a secondary condition, personally. Because I can't read maps, do higher math...

"Hey, this would be a nifty way to categorize people in order to stratify them and match them up with the hierarchical job system we've formed post industrial revolution!"

Don't. Even. Get. Me. Started.

Singed,
enthusiast-on-her-way-to-be-educated historian of the 19th century-among-others, and student of sociology who attends "Organizations and Society" class

I just realized, I don't actually add/multiply numbers; I've just memorized the answers to most of the problems. I cannot multiply anything above the 6's. 6x8? I have no idea; I'd have to work it out. Yet, I scored 640 on the math part of the SAT. I test well.

no sense of the passage of time, gets obsessed over weird and small details, and suffers from both hyperfocus and an utter lack of focus, depending on the task

That... sounds rather like me. Hm.

That sounds like ADD. t /notadoctor

It's sometimes more complex than just being too gifted to think in standard ways. I have a definite mathematical learning difficulty. I am practically innumerate, and not great even with mathematical concepts that don't involve arithmetic. I had four years of one-to-one math lessons, and I still can't calculate change. You can imagine what statistics classes are like for me. I'm also dyslexic (in particular, I read at about half the average speed, and the words move around on the page, although a green transparent overlay helps with that a bit), and borderline Asperger's (with all the literalism, poor social skills etc that goes with that). Yet I was always the first in my class at many subjects, I'm on course for a distinction in my MA (not easy to get, at all) and I have verbal reasoning capabilities that totally floored the psychologist who assessed me (which was only two years ago, incidentally).

But, yeah - it's definitely two sides of the coin. Neurological diversity is cool.

Hil, re writing by hand, hypermobility can cause issues with the motor skills involved with writing. I couldn't write by hand for years, still find it painful, but I can type for hours.

Twice edited for spelling. Not ironically.