My parents phone number no chance. I can't remember my own mobile number, and when I write down the land line I have to check I haven't reversed the positions of the first and fourth digit. I had a panic in Lidls the other day, as they have put in a cover for the chip and pin, I remember my pin number by the pattern my fingers go in.
Is trouble with numbers also dyslexia? I worked in banks for a decade or so (IT), but was also involved in input control on the clerical side. Problems with numbers is common even among those who work with numbers as a profession such as in accounting and book-keeping, especially the reversing of numbers (transposing). This is why there are so many controls in the input process such as batch totals and check digits.
Remembering numbers is a common problem. I don't remember my mobile number because I never phone myself! In order to remember my pin number - I look at it as a year number in the middle ages - I remember the century and the number is at the end of that century. For my old pin numbers I used other tricks, including the one you use: remembering the pattern as I type it in.
If I can't see my fingers I can't remember my pin. I use the same method to spell better with a keyboard. The word "behaviour" i used to have real trouble getting the three last vowels in the right order, but once I remembered the pattern my fingers went in I was fine.
I wonder whether you would find touch typing easier or harder.
This is really interesting, as my worst problem is leaving out small words. For example I will write "I like the smacking of under two's, they don't understand why they are been hit, and it is cruel" so either I am a sicko or left I out the word Don't.
In Germany we once spent a whole day over a problem because in the German handbook, which was a translation of an American handbook, the translator had left out the word "not" ! Similarly, I spent two days trying to find a bug in a program, with all my colleagues also themselves looking through the program for the error. We couldn't find it until I spotted that there was a full stop where there should have been a comma.
I can design my own celtic knotwork and develop new nalbinding stitches, and I can look at countless plants and fungi and remember what uses they have. Oddly if i forget the name I remember the page in my field guides that they are on. There is certainly visual memory skills that come with dyslexia either that or useless knowledge like english grammar has been disposed of to make way for the more useful knowledge of fungi .
I wonder how well people who suffer from dyslexia would do with a language which uses graphical characters, ideogrammes etc. such as Chinese, Japanese or Korean. I suspect they would find it easier than those of us who are more comfortable with single letter alphabets.
[OFF-TOPIC] What field guide do you use, xylaria?