You are helping out in a middle school classroom. One of the students in the class is finding a math

Multiple intelligence is a good one. This is just my personal opinion, but I think it's likely that this student is talented in other areas; perhaps his/her logical part of the  brain isn't as well-developed as say the part of the brain that deals with creativity, art, language, etc. This student may excel more so in music or in language classes than a student whose very successful at math. Said differently, a math person may not have a well-developed creative brain, hence is more interested in numbers than abstract material.

Intelligence is multi-dimensional, and there's always potential for anyone to succeed just as long as they practice and work hard to achieve their own personal goals.