Does this sound like an LD? (dyscalculia maybe)

<p>Quick background: I'm a political science major (hesitant accounting minor; hesitant partially for reasons stated below) at a pretty good school. I'm also studying intermediate Korean language. I've always tried hard and done pretty good at academic work. However, I struggle with two major problems that tend to rear their ugly head in classes involving creative problem solving and/or math. </p>

<ol>
<li><p>I oftentimes switch numbers or symbols without thinking (i.e. I will think a 4 but write a 7 or I will shift a curve such as the demand curve left not right); I know the concepts inside and out but I sometimes I can't translate that knowledge in the correct way to the paper. I also do a similar thing in foreign language (though less so compared to math) where I do things such as misplacing a word or writing the wrong verb form without noticing it. Going over my work only sometimes helps as I oftentimes still miss my mistakes. </p></li>
<li><p>I am quite good at understanding concepts, even abstract ones, in mathematical terms (i.e. understanding political science papers written using game theory). However, I oftentimes struggle greatly in formulating word problems into the correct mathematical equations. On a similar note, I also struggle greatly with applying knowledge of a foreign language to knew situation. For example, I will oftentimes learn new words in a way that prevents practical usage (i.e. if I know the word for "much (i.e. years) later" I will be unable to translate a sentence such as "I will become a senior citizen in a long time" because I don't correlate "much later" to "in a long time") Also, my use of grammar in a foreign language is oftentimes limited to those situations that involve only simple sentences and when reading a paragraph, I will have trouble applying the grammar rules to more complex sentences even though I have seen the grammar patterns many times before.</p></li>
<li><p>I struggle to understand foreign language (both Korean and my earlier language Spanish) when I hear it; I will understand it if I read it, yet even if its spoken abnormally slowly, I oftentimes struggle to comprehend the words. This is partially related to my above problem of not being able to adapt my foreign language skills to new sentences well. </p></li>
</ol>

<p>In terms of practice Ive done the following:</p>

<ol>
<li>get a math tutor (doesn't help much because its not a conceptual understanding problem)</li>
<li>I tried a foreign language tutor but feel its best to just stay with one teacher as learning a foreign language is oftentimes different depending on the perspective of the teacher. </li>
<li>practicing many math problems over and over in timed settings (has somewhat helped)</li>
</ol>

<p>As for my other problem (the one related to taking word problems and making equations) I am confused as how to proceed as it just seems like my mind isn't able to transfer a real-life situation to math even though Im quite good at doing the opposite. </p>

<p>If anyone could give me some advice, Id really appreciate it!</p>

<p>It very well may be dyscalculia. There’s various forms of dyscaculia – some people are really good at doing calculations, but have problems only with equations or word problems and vice versa. </p>

<p>There are some new approaches and research being done, so you could look into finding ways to work with discalculia so you can go into accounting. You could also try something like economics which is more conceptual and less math-based than accounting, and relevant to political science. Definitely remain open to other areas of study and potential careers because you never know what new jobs will be created and what jobs will have a high or low demand years from now. If you truly like accounting, don’t let your dyscalculia get in the way.</p>

<p>All the best! :-)</p>