I just got done talking to my sister on the phone and they are having a heck of a time finding a job/career for my niece (diagnosed NLD, Dyscalculia,and EDS type 3).
The problems are:
She can’t to math above a second grade level.
She has trouble following the flow of conversations at times. Plus some speech issues.
The EDS makes it so her joints are craptastic, so she can’t do very much physical stuff (her job as a grocery store bagger causes her pain).
My sister and her have been poring over a local community college’s offerings online and everyone that sounds good (heck, even a BAKING degree) requires her to take at least one math class. These aren’t goof off types (Math Survey, etc), no she needs to take CALCULUS to be able to bake bread. :smack: She wasn’t set on that degree, its just one my told me.
She is intelligent and caring, she knows she is different. This is the third voc rehab counciliar she has seen. The first treated her like shit and didn’t help her at all, the second got fired for promising people too much (told niece all math could be wavered) and the current one is at a loss as what to do.
Thank you for listening to my rant, any ideas would be appreciated.
It sounds like a case for the laws governing handicapped access to employment. Someone who has serious dyscalculia should be given help in finding an appropriate job, just the way a blind person is.
There are surely Equal Access law centers that can give concrete advice.
One place to try is the community college’s learning assistance center where they employ tutors - if they have one. Hopefully they do. The tutors are usually students looking to make an extra buck, although some were professionals as salaried college staff. When I was going through my JC there were tutors who were very helpful and kept regular hours so if I found a helpful one I could drop in during their regular hours. Some weren’t that good but if you find a good one they can be like finding gold. And, you might be able to hire that tutor separately.
Um, isn’t needing calculus to bake bread a bit of an exaggeration on your part, Arztwolf? But I can see how needing to understand fractions would be useful for baking and cooking. Also how to increase or decrease recipes depending on how many people one wants to serve.
I am good at maths. However, I don’t know what NLD or EDS are.
looks them up
That didn’t help much. I think they’re Non-verbal Learning Disorder, and Ehlers-Danlos syndrome. I would have preferred an explanation of such opaque acronyms, please, thank you, ta.
Anyway, mathematics is what the Universe runs on. It’s inescapable. Sorry.
A person who cannot do these things will have a hard time being a productive worker at a place that employs people. If you also cannot do modest physical work, that’s another avenue to productivity closed down.
Anyway, if you want to be a baker, you better plan on schlepping heavy bags of flour all over the place, forget the math part of it.
She’s in a tough spot, the only thing I can suggest is putting down on paper the things she does bring to the table, the skills and abilities she has that may be of value to an employer. Then put down her limitations, and start researching jobs, even if you’re just searching for broad job opportunities and going through thousands of entries to get an idea of what is out there that she can be good at.
Per another thread, she lives in a very rural area and does not drive. Possible jobs may be in the tens rather than the thousands.
Personally, I don’t think she’s a good fit for college. Most jobs that do not involve thinking are going to involve physical labor. If she is both mentally and physically unable to support herself, I would suggest that she start investigating Social Security Disability.
Their mission is to help place the disabled and veterans in jobs carved out around the US through a gov’t sponsored jobs program. Employers vary across fed, state, county and private employers.
They seem like one of the good guys as far as not-for-profit outfits go.
I recommend the OP speak with them to find more information for their area.
Almost all schools have disability resource centers. It won’t necessarily waive the math requirements, but they usually can make “reasonable accommodations” in the face of a diagnosed disability (extra time on tests, allowance for open notes or calculators when normally they can’t use them).
E: Also, maybe check if she can take some sort of discrete math course instead. People with dyscalculia can often (but not always!) do fine once they get to the more abstract/symbolic math like discrete math or even abstract algebra. If they do combinatorics it may be a difficult module for her, but things like set theory are very distant from the sort of calculatory math that gets dyscalculic people in regular schooling.
Concur. Lil’ help, OP; those aren’t remotely close to being common or familiar. Anyway, regarding item # 2: how is her reading comprehension? Can she write, follow written directions, things like that?
It’s not that math is needed for everything, it’s that math is required for every (nearly every) degree. It’s just part of how the school turns out well rounded students. The same way all the students are required to take an English and some other random GenEd courses.
I’d be surprised if she really had to go all the way up to calc to get a baking degree though. I know several people culinary arts degrees and I’m quite sure none of them ever took that much math, plus, I can’t even see where Calculus comes into baking.
Having said all that and using your example, if she wants to work in a bakery and can’t get a degree, she could just go and apply at some of the local bakeries. She might find herself a job there. You don’t need a degree to help them mix dough and pull bread out of the oven. That degree is more useful when you want to open your own place or be the pastry chef at a restaurant.
AFAIK, with NLD and Dyscalculia, things like reading and written instructions aren’t affected, except visio-spacial instructions. Things like following directions on a map, or pictures illustrating how to, say, fold origami would be extremely difficult*. Just generally anything that involves visualization or abstractly manipulating physical objects in your head is hard. But I won’t speak for Artzt Wolf’s niece specifically.
But then, I think we can all agree that origami instructions can get fucked.
How else will I calculate the precise volume of this muffin tin that happens to follow some extremely well-defined function?
The baking degree was just an example, it was a “this sounds good” until the math appeared at the bottom of the course description.
One other option is TSA screener. She is super good with attention to detail, like “Where’s Waldo?” world champion type. Just an idea the counselor put out that might work.
I don’t mean to be flip, but if your sister has these mental and physical issues, what jobs is she actually suitable for? I mean, the typical the mental and physical requirements of jobs are roughly inversely proportional, and it doesn’t sound like your sister can hack it on either side.
IIRC, second grade math doesn’t include multiplication or division (or it didn’t in 1980-1981 anyway), so that’s a HUGE handicap in the modern world. To give an example, if she worked at a restaurant, and someone said “I need 500 straws.”, and they come in boxes of 150, she’d be unable to work out that she needs to go get 4 boxes and will have 1/3 of a box left over at the end.
Maybe something like a Wal-Mart greeter, or an information booth or something like that would be a good job for her?
Honestly, a baker needs math as much as anyone. Taking recipes and doubling them, etc. requires math. Converting volumes between pints, cups, and ounces, for instance, requires a basic understanding of math. I can’t imagine how calculus will help a baker unless he’s required to compute the volume of a loaf of bread before selling it.
I’d contact your local disability services and ask them what’s available as far as training and/or placement.
Are you SURE that something hasn’t been misunderstood? I just looked up culinary arts at my local CC and while it does require 3 credits (1 course) of math, it can be anything that falls under the heading “Mathematical and Quantitative Reasoning”. They also provide remedial, noncredit, math to bring students up to the level to where they can fulfill the degree requirement.
Hmmmm … “good with attention to detail” is a very positive trait, and one where your average worker bee will often fall short, so I’d focus on that. Data entry might be one option: the positions are plentiful, and even if she’s typing in numbers she won’t be manipulating them, plus it’s a desk job so it shouldn’t affect her joint pain.
Are there any local mom-and-pop stores that need someone to help in the back? A florist shop that needs someone to trim stem ends, perhaps?
How is she with kids? (Could she help out at a day care center, for example?) What about animals?
