Acknowledging that everyone is wired differently, I’m looking for new approaches that I can apply to my studies. I am very determined to confront my fears of the GED test because I have fantasized about furthering my education.
I passed my English portion without studying and was very confident I could do the same with Social Studies, but failed by 5 points. That, I cannot blame on my learning disorder. However, no matter how much I study (very basic) math, I often forget how to subtract bigger numbers, or simply add and subtract negative and positive integers. I have hired a tutor to help once a week and he is very patient. I absorb the information and try to apply it to a worksheet specific to what I had learned, not even an hour after our session, to find that the information is no longer available in my head. I feel like the information is there, as if it’s hiding behind a wall but I can’t move the wall to gather what I need.
Any suggestions would be fantastic, as I’m becoming very angry with myself and this inability to level with my peers in certain areas. In addition to the issue, I am a full time employee and a mother. I’ve felt very neglectful of my other responsibilities to my daughter, wife, and home. It is really hurting my mental state and worsening problems that were already present. (Anxiety, skin picking, EDNOS, extreme irritability)
I’m having a psychoeducational evaluation done in April to update the information for an accommodated test, but I fear the accommodations offered are simply not enough to score the bare minimum. Reading over my last evaluation really absorbed a lot of my psychological energy when I found that my IQ is an 86. I hide behind my intelligence and I feel like it’s being stripped from me.
Any advice/tips would be appreciated!
Regards,
CruzAC
Hi CruzAC and welcome to the forum,
Some years ago, I read some research with children who had Dyscalculia and had been getting one to one tutoring and had developed the ability to do basic math.
But they found that when the children returned to their classrooms?
That this ability that they had developed, disappeared?
But returned when they went back with the tutor.
So that the question was?
Why could they do math with tutor, but not in the classroom?
Where they identified that in the classroom, that it caused them to recall their history of difficulties with math.
Recalling the fear and anxiety, of doing math in the classroom.
But what this fear and anxiety was causing, was ‘thoughts of doubt’ as they tried to do some math ?
So that as they worked through a math problem?
At each step, they would doubt whether it was correct?
So they would start over again.
Which would then turn into cycle of restarting, until they gave up.
But the solution was to come to trust their thinking, and not doubt the answers that they are arriving at.
So that in regard to your tutor, where you wrote:
‘I absorb the information and try to apply it to a worksheet specific to what I had learned, not even an hour after our session, to find that the information is no longer available in my head.’
But it hasn’t disappeared?
Rather their are thoughts telling you it isn’t available?
Thoughts from the past.
So that with confronting it?
What you could do, is recognize them as thoughts from the past, and replace them thoughts of the present.
Recalling that you were able to do it an hour ago with the tutor.