I have ADD and used to have significant trouble with these kind of issues, while I still have trouble with time, almost all of my issues with remembering number (pin codes etc) went away after an "intensive" regimen of essentially n-back training prescribed by my care provider.

While my improvement after 30min a day for a couple of weeks was something of an aberration in magnitude (from 70"th percentile to 110'th, from well below average to above), it was reportedly quite consistent in increasing recall percentile with ~10% as measured against the general population. Which especially at lower percentiles is quite impressive!

It's not really realated, but to me the whole thing was quite a strange experience! After roughly a week of daily practice, it suddenly felt like I found a part of my brain I didn't even know existed. I could suddenly pick numbers, or sequences of "lights" turning on on the screen, seemingly from nothing! The first times it happened I didn't really remember the sequence, I only knew which button to push, but after a little more practice I started to be able to consciously recall the sequence from this new place in my mind.

It was truly stunning to be suddenly able to look at a code at the car wash, and sometimes remember it for hours afterwards!

Me, who several times had forgotten my card pin, who though I loved and was good at maths had to read digit by digit to get the numbers right (and often still didn't), and who had in general tended to permute any kind of number more often than not for the ~30 years I had known what numbers were!

The brain is so strange sometimes.

>an "intensive" regimen of essentially n-back training prescribed by my care provider.

can you describe the treatment protocol to us in brief or link us to additional resources on this topic? this sounds very interesting and potentially very helpful.

Mental math is so difficult for me that it’s embarrassing! The numbers just don’t stay in my head long enough. I used to feel anxiety if math came up in conversation because I simply can’t calculate in my head like others do, and it makes me feel like a fool.

In school, I’d think I’d be doing great on my math problems. When I’d get my work back, I did terrible because I’d accidentally change the numbers in the middle of the problem. I also always had a feeling that I missed some foundational information because nothing ever clicked for me. I put it down to switching schools a few times, but I think it may have been something more than that now. I was actually scared to even try programming because I was always told you need to be good at math, so I thought I would fail terribly.

> Mental math is so difficult for me that it’s embarrassing! The numbers just don’t stay in my head long enough. I used to feel anxiety if math came up in conversation because I simply can’t calculate in my head like others do, and it makes me feel like a fool.

This is a huge problem for me too, but I take solace in the observation that that isn't _math_, that's _arithmetic_.

I can relate to this. I was “bad” at math as a child, and was so bored by its basics or at least how they were taught. I never had a good foundation and so never got to takeTrig or Calculus in high school. Later, during my PHD studies, I discovered I was great at set theory, and went on to learn programming. I realized I was never “bad” at math. I was poorly taught. As a result, I had trouble holding numbers in my head to work with them.Now that I am “good” at math, I find this much easier.

I bore/regale/tell/tormwnt everyone I talk with about anything math related, that mathematics and calculation (with numbers) is entirely different abilities. I do this because I've heard so many stories similar to your about people thinking they are bad at math where the only issue turns out to be the digits, numbers, and holding them in you head. Which, quite frankly is not something very relevant to most of mathematics, and as you relate, when you get at ease with the actual math, dealing with numbers usually gets a bit easier.

If not, there exists specific training that helps a significant fraction of people to get better at handling the actual numbers, training which also is completely unrelated to maths.

I don't have any problems with numbers or math. But I do have the same issue with time conversion in Dutch. I also have problems with tens. In Dutch you say "four and sixty" for 64, which I find terribly confusing and I often replace it with 46 internally. I tend to read numbers in English for that reason.

This makes me curious if braille would be easier for dyslectics than reading with the eyes.