User:Xander Rambles/sandbox

Speculative Disability: Asymbolic Acaculia

Please note that this is a speculative article and has not undergone any sort of actual study as of yet, professional or otherwise, to see if the condition even exists or is worth considering for separate notation alongside other variations of acalculia.

Asymbolic Acalculia

While subjects with asymbolic acalculia are able to count and solve calculations in their head, they do so in terms of shapes and spaces rather than symbols or words. For example, a subject with assymbolic acalcula might easily recognize the value of each face of a set of dice that used pips, but be completely unable to recognize the value of any face of a similar set of dice that used numbers instead. Similarly, they might easily add, subtract, multiply, or divide using sets of pips while remaining unable to recognize any of the values of the same problems if presented in verbal or alphanumeric form.

The main difference between this and other forms of discalculia or acalculia is that those afflicted with this variant actually can count and solve calculations after a fashion, with their main difficulty being with expressing the problem and results in terms of words and symbols symbols.

Possible example of how someone with asymbolic acalcula might have to represent a complex calculation:

((1 + 2) * 3) - 4 = ? would instead be solved first by breaking the symbols down to their values as shapes or spaces (perhaps by using pips as in the following example):

((. + ..) * ...) - .... = ?

Then solving the problem by visualizing it as as follows:

. + .. = ...

... * ... = .........

......... - .... = .....

((. + ..) * ...) - .... = .....

And finally translating the pip value into either "five" or "5" as required.

Please consider and discuss...