Anyone heard of a dyslexic numeral system?

[Max™]

Like specifically designed to overcome the left/right or up/down perceptual difficulties encountered by dyslexics?


Anyone here dyslexic who was frustrated with the general reaction that you're broken, that you can be fixed, and you should just be made to deal with things the same way everyone does?


I have spoken to a few who were turned off of subjects they appreciated or loved, because the inability to enjoy doing them in the typical manner ruined it.

My girlfriend, and her father actually, both hated math in school, both think they're terrible at it. Yet if I quiz them in a verbal manner, they operate better than they implied they were able to. Seems to me the problem is the assumption that arabic numerals (0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9) are required to do math. That you have to perform operations in them, and if you have difficulties, you just suck at math.



What clicked for me though, I told her about this guy, Daniel Tammet, he describes how numbers appear in his head. The shapes and textures encode the values, and by manipulating those images, he can do incredible calculations with ease, or memorize pi to like 25k places.

The same way we remember the route we took when we walked down the street yesterday, he sees a string of shapes representing pi.

She immediately tells me, 4 is beige, feels like sandpaper, 1 is round and yellow, 2 is a red dot, 3 is orange, and that she loved roman numerals when she had a teacher who would write problems for her that way.

She said math was beautiful then, amazing, it made sense.


I started thinking about it, and how I look at numbers. Spent the entire night trying to find different ways to produce a set of numerals which were distinguishable from all the others even if reversed or flipped, only rotation can change the symbols into others.

Worked on that idea for a while, then decided to start all over from scratch after failing to find a way to encode information into the strokes used to write the symbol in an obvious and aesthetic manner.

Then I made this:
http://i341.photobucket.com/albums/o...ysnumerals.jpg

The relationships between the symbols can be shown to represent the basic mathematical operations between them, how certain operations mean to take this piece off and put it on the first pieces after rotating them, so on.

It can be demonstrated with your fingers too.
Thumb obscuring your index finger behind the nail to show a fingertip
Index finger horizontally
Rotate the finger vertically
Bend the finger 90 degrees
Place your other finger next to it with both straight vertically
Crook one over to the other with a right angle
Both fingers horizontal
Crook one over to the other
Form a square with your bent finger and thumb touching the other
Hold one finger vertically with index and middle crossing it horizontally.


I'm not sure why I can't find a universally readable example of a similar concept, it has to have been developed before, I'd think. Like the private languages of twins, baby speak, the hash marks people use to tally things, just codified.

[Jotaru]

I have absolutely no clue what you just said, but its pretty amazing.

Edit: Being somewhat sarcastic, I know what you're getting at, I don't fully understand the system suggested, but its still a pretty radically awesome idea. Kudos-

[Kaylia]

Then I made this:
http://i341.photobucket.com/albums/o...ysnumerals.jpg

1*6 = 6
-*===


[edit]

While I'm sure you could somehow managed to redesign every mathematics symbol, you would probably end up with the same problem

[Stilzkin]

Not making sense to me, how are these lines different than the normal numbers we use?
I'm guessing I'm missing something?

[dudeguy]

I don't know whats going, but I saw Daniel Tammet so I think it's appropriate that I post this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbASOcqc1Ss

It's fascinating what the human mind can do.

[Deimos]

I have no idea what problem you think you're solving.

Does 1 look like any other number if you flip, reverse, or rotate it? No.
Does 2 look like any other number if you flip, reverse, or rotate it? No.
Does 3 look like any other number if you flip, reverse, or rotate it? No.
Does 4 look like any other number if you flip, reverse, or rotate it? No.
Does 5 look like any other number if you flip, reverse, or rotate it? No.
Does 6 look like any other number if you flip, reverse, or rotate it? 9, if you rotate it 180 degrees.
Does 7 look like any other number if you flip, reverse, or rotate it? No.
Does 8 look like any other number if you flip, reverse, or rotate it? No.
Does 9 look like any other number if you flip, reverse, or rotate it? 6, if you rotate it 180 degrees.
Does 0 look like any other number if you flip, reverse, or rotate it? No.

How are yours superior to this? More of yours are similar, and require less rotation to become that way.

Maybe I don't get it because I'm not dyslexic.

[Mojo]

Nearly every numerical system has already been designed this way, you just never noticed it before. Synesthesia is immensely more complex than simply redesigning the ways numbers appear when written. When someone with synesthesia imagines what a number is, it's not just some shape or color, it's a mixture between shape, color, text, sound.... really every sensation that humans are capable of processing. Synesthesia also occurs differently among those who have it, so some 'universal number system' does not exist.

[Mojo]

Also... dyslexia is a cognitive disorder. It's almost completely unrelated to synesthesia.

[Max™]

Not making sense to me, how are these lines different than the normal numbers we use?
I'm guessing I'm missing something?

They're designed specifically for people with dyscalculia of some sort.

They encode the information of the numbers themselves in a way that is very important to those of us with slightly different brain wiring.


You know intuitively that 2 faces left, and 5 faces right, well, I assume you know it that way, I had to train myself to keep that in mind.

More severe cases have trouble keeping the distinction, will flip numbers around in calculations, providing horribly wrong answers that they can't understand why they're wrong.

If you were trying to add 63 and 25, and in your head worked out 93 + 52, then wrote down 155, it would feel right. If you had a way to exactly distinguish between 63 and 93 even if they were flipped, you'd know where the error was.

The bars are longer than an equals sign when written out, more like turning || over around an axis at the center of the right bar: ||<- there.

Nearly every numerical system has already been designed this way, you just never noticed it before.

Show me how 2 represents two objects, how 6 represents six objects.

Know what her favorite number was? 4, it has the four points, it was vivid in her mind that it encoded four objects.

Roman Numerals, Egyptian, aspects of others.

The problem there is the number of additional strokes required to represent the information.

2 does not tell you what two is, you learned to connect the symbol to the number.

"It was awful, there were 1's and 0's everywhere... I think I saw a 2!"
'It's ok Bender, there's no such thing as 2.'

Synesthesia is immensely more complex than simply redesigning the ways numbers appear when written.

This was designed specifically to eliminate issues with dyscalculia, a form of dyslexia, which isn't a disorder, it isn't curable. Your brain works differently from everyone elses, most brains have a certain structure which handles the orientation of symbols in a precise manner, enough don't that it is evident it isn't simply a broken brain, it's one that had the wiring hook up differently.

When someone with synesthesia imagines what a number is, it's not just some shape or color, it's a mixture between shape, color, text, sound.... really every sensation that humans are capable of processing.

Black background, shiny crystalline shapes, the dimensionality of the shapes encodes part of the value, the weight encodes the rest.

When I do math, I bring up the shape corresponding to that number, then hack it up, split it into other shapes I see readily, expand it in size til it fits a shape that matches two smaller ones.

It isn't as advanced as Tammet's is, and I have to work at it a lot more than he does, but I can already tell the difference that thinking with these numerals has made. Trying to use arabic numerals induces a weird sort of static, makes the shapes fuzzy. This snaps it into clarity.

Synesthesia also occurs differently among those who have it, so some 'universal number system' does not exist.

Synesthesia is more common than you think, I know what it is from experience, and I didn't encode it in these, though they are very suitable for adaptation to it.

Does 1 look like any other number if you flip, reverse, or rotate it? It's almost a 7.
Does 2 look like any other number if you flip, reverse, or rotate it? 5.
Does 3 look like any other number if you flip, reverse, or rotate it? It's almost an 8.
Does 4 look like any other number if you flip, reverse, or rotate it? No.
Does 5 look like any other number if you flip, reverse, or rotate it? 2.
Does 6 look like any other number if you flip, reverse, or rotate it? 9, if you rotate it 180 degrees.
Does 7 look like any other number if you flip, reverse, or rotate it? Almost a 1.
Does 8 look like any other number if you flip, reverse, or rotate it? Almost a 3.
Does 9 look like any other number if you flip, reverse, or rotate it? 6, if you rotate it 180 degrees.
Does 0 look like any other number if you flip, reverse, or rotate it? No.

[Demosthenes11]

max, you are not a genius and can not solve all of cognitive science and physics problems yourself

This does not work because it does not affect everyone the same. You can't assume all people with depression are depressed for the same reasons, or that everyone that is blind is blind for the same reason.

[wipers]

I watched a TV program about Daniel Tammet. He recited PI to some crazy ass length it was pretty damn impressive.

[tyven]

your 5 is a pi bro

[Mojo]

0 is empty
1 is a single stroke
2 requires two strokes to write
3 has three points
4 has four points and requires four strokes to write
5 has five faces
6 is similar to five but curvy
7 is one I never really understood
8 has eight faces
9 is similar to eight but curvy

Cursory looks over numerals from other languages yield similar results. Devising a different way to represent numbers that is more familiar to you doesn't necessarily mean it's going to appear more logical to someone with dislexia.

I doubt you have synesthesia, it's not even remotely like what you described. There is no logical order like "the weight and size of this crystal I imagine determines its value." Patterns like that do not exist to a synesthetic. It just sounds like another one of your self indulgent posts.

Also, I have a form of dislexia, fyi.

[Kaylia]

I just found an even better solution. Work in binary! Can't confuse 1 and 0

[Mojo]

lol

[Knyghtmayre]

1 is just a lowercase 7.

Also, a dyslexic person confuses Arabic 9 and 6, and yet your 5 is just a rotated version of 7.

And if you REALLY wanted to create some batshit numeric system, you don't have to go attempting to create things that look thousands of years old...

http://i48.tinypic.com/nqwzl4.png

[Mizango]

Max you're making me want to watch Pi again. Damn you.

[Tyche]

Tammet didn't "memorize" pi to the x-thousandth decimal place, he actually did the math and recited the numerical answer. Also, iirc from the couple of documentaries on savants, Daniel didn't have "common" synesthesia. What he describe isn't the Sam as the term is described. Your best bet is to learn to use an Atticus without an Atticus. There are young children capable of incredibly complex calculations by using an invisible Atticus.

[Nirokun!]

I don't know whats going, but I saw Daniel Tammet so I think it's appropriate that I post this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbASOcqc1Ss

It's fascinating what the human mind can do.

I watched this and it was awesome.

I count with taps that trace the numbers. (Like for 3, I tap each ending point on the left side of the number, 3 points is 3. For 5, I tap the top left and top right of the horizontal line forming the top of the number, then hit a point off of the number and to the left of where the vertical line reaches its lowest point, then hit that point, then hit the last point off to the right side opposite the 3rd point. Weird I know. )

1
.

2
.
.

3
.
.
.

4
..
..

5
..
...

6
...
...

7
...
....

8
....
....

9
...
...
...

(everything closer together)

I met a girl in middle school who apparently did the same thing, I think her name was laura! :O

edit: i realize everyone likes pictures and I was compelled to make one :D

http://img509.imageshack.us/img509/9920/44990187.jpg

[Blarg]

Your best bet is to learn to use an Atticus without an Atticus. There are young children capable of incredibly complex calculations by using an invisible Atticus.

It's abacus but I've seen a video of what you are talking about. It was pretty incredible. Most of them would still move their fingers as if they were operating one but I imagine if you got really good it could all be in your head. I wonder how easily something like that could be learned as a child when it isn't yet something strange to the kids.