Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Low processing speed--range of possible causes

Hi! I'm new here and have a 6-year-old who was just tested using the WISC-V. His GAI makes him eligible for gifted services in our district, which is why I had him assessed, but his processing speed was much lower than his other scores (<10th%) and depressed his FSIQ. I am close friends with a licensed child psychologist (lucky me!) who performed the test and did not seem concerned about his low processing speed, at least for now. He is finishing K and has done very well academically this year.

Basically, I have been googling everything I can find about this and am at a loss as to what I should do, if anything, because he has just about every potential reason for low processing speed there is, including:

*Poor fine motor skills (inherited from me--I had a very difficult time learning to write and have terrible handwriting).

*Strabismus/wandering eyes (mild and also inherited from me, but he is being conservatively treated for it and is reading well, so I wouldn't think this would be a big issue--it is apparently worse at far-vision than near-vision).

*General clumsiness/lack of coordination (also inherited from me--sorry kid. We are hypermobile, which can contribute to this).

*Very slow and methodical and similar to my husband in this. Husband is a STEM professional and was an excellent student, but he has complained that he would have done better on standardized tests if he'd had more time. (His SATs were still in top 1%, so please don't cry on his behalf.)

*General asynchronous development--I only had my kid tested now because he has started complaining school is boring and he isn't learning anything new, and he hasn't really made any close friends. He was not *at all* academically ahead at the end of preschool except perhaps for vocabulary, and things just sort of sprang online overnight this year. My husband was also not a developmentally advanced kid and didn't really shine as a student until middle school, though he never struggled. My son couldn't read a word at the beginning of the school year, was still sounding out almost every word two months ago, and has jumped about a year in reading ability since then. (He's just started basic chapter books.) He started doing advanced math work on his own early this year--nothing crazy advanced, as I don't think he's highly gifted, but stuff like "70 + 10 x 3 = 100" that is beyond what they're doing in K. I feel like I see new skills "come online" every day. I don't think processing speed will ever be one of his strengths per se, but I wonder if his brain has just been working too hard on his other cognitive leaps this year.

*And finally, of course, the possibility of non-hyperactive ADHD. There's no family history there, but my family is notorious for being forgetful/losing things/hyperfocused or not at all focused. However, we've all been great students, and processing speed is one of my intellectual strengths. My son is the kind of kid that you have to tell to get dressed several times, put on his shoes several times, etc.--though I have been using lots of positive reinforcement when he doesn't need reminders since the test, and he's improved a lot with regards to this in the past two weeks. His teacher noticed at the beginning of the school year that he will appear distracted while actually paying attention, which I already knew.

So I kind of don't know what to do, if anything. Should I just wait and see if my son develops any issues that seem more concerning? Should I seek additional evaluation? My child psychologist friend wasn't that concerned by his low processing speed--she knows my husband, and he's obviously more of a tortoise than a hare--but I also don't want my kid to *not* get help he needs if he needs any help.

Any thoughts/encouragement appreciated!

I have heard of correlation between Ehlers Danlos Syndrome and slow processing speed.

http://giftedissues.davidsongifted....4283/Gap_between_processing_speed_a.html

There's also strong correlation between Ehlers Danlos and ADHD. But I think there's more than meets the eye there. Dysautonomia is a common comorbitiy of EDS and dysautonomia conditions tend to result in cerebral hypoperfusion, which may present as ADHD. I likely have HSD, definitely have POTS, and was misdiagnosed with ADHD. My son has slow processing speed (21st percentile) and was diagnosed with ADHD, but I see he has some signs of dysautonomia too. So is it ADHD or another manifestation of hypermobility for your son?

And correlation between Ehlers Danlos and Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder. OCPD is nothing like OCD at all, but addresses perfectionism and excessively methodical traits.
https://www.jove.com/visualize/abst...tween-joint-hypermobility-syndromeehlers

It's also normal for highly intelligent children to lag in executive functioning skills until middle school years.

And the behaviors you mention sound eerily like underachieving. The book Why Bright Kids Get Poor Grades by Sylvia Rimm may help you clarify if your son has more executive function weakness or maybe slipping into underacheiving... or both! Positive Reinforcement can SERIOUSLY backfire for underachievers. For a different way, read Punished by Rewards by Alfie Kohn, followed by Transforming the Difficult Child by Howard Glasser and Jennifer Easley.

I would suggest exploring the poor fine motor skills. Is it physical? Is it neurological?

I would also sa to trust him when he says school is boring. A low processing speed score can skew that FSIQ. My son's first evaluation was age 6 when he had 21st percentile processing speed. His FSIQ was 68th percentile, and GAI was very close. At age 8, after ADHD diagnosis and treatment, his processing speed was 50th percentile and his FSIQ shot WAY up, GAI was suddenly 99.8th percentile. HUGE difference. And to think I'd spent those 2 years thinking he wasn't really so smart after all. :regrets:

I would suggest pursuing all angles further and research the less obvious implications of hypermobility on academic performance.

Welcome to the forums, amyrps.

First, a disclaimer - I'm not a professional, but the parent of two kids who scored relatively low on the processing speed test portion of the WISC. As you've already discovered, there are many different reasons that a child might score low on the processing speed subtests. The first thing I'd note is that your child is 6 years old and doesn't seem to have any issues at the moment... so it's possible that the dip in processing speed portion of the test could be something as simple as your ds was tired or bored and not being attentive when taking that particular subtest. That said, both of my children who had relatively low processing speed scores also had real issues behind those dips in scores. My ds was first tested at 5, for a gifted program, and the evaluator noticed the dip in processing speed but thought it was nothing more than a sign of a child who liked to be very careful and thoughtful and therefore moved slowly when writing out the answers to questions (the subtest is timed). All of that is actually very true, and he wasn't struggling (or didn't seem to be struggling) in school at that time - but by the time he was in 2nd grade the undiagnosed issues behind the slow processing speed score were impacting in a hugely negative way. There are tests that can tease out the reasons for a relative dip in processing speed - when my ds' struggles at school became extreme his dr recommended a neuropscyh eval, and the neuropscyh administered not only ability and achievement tests, but also tests for adhd, fine motor abilities, etc. and was able to diagnose what the actual issue was (for ds it was dyspraxia and dysgraphia, for our dd it was a vision issue). The neuropsychologist eval was extremely helpful for us, but it's also something that isn't really necessary if there isn't an issue driving the discrepancy in scores. The first thing I'd recommend is to look at how your ds is functioning overall - do you see indications of any type of struggle or challenge? Or have any reason to believe there might be a family history of something such as dysgraphia which can have a genetic link? It can be really difficult to know at this point in a child's life, but fwiw, there are a few things you've listed which are similar for my ds: he was very slow to put on clothes etc (we just thought of him as a tortoise, and still do ... but in reality the lack of automaticity due to dyspraxia was a real challenge for him). My ds is also very slow moving and isn't terribly talkative. His dad didn't talk at all. Everyone in the family thought of this as just personality but now that there are several grandchildren who have dysgraphia/dyslexia/dysgraphia I suspect that ds' grandfather was probably also dyspraxic. My dd with the vision issues was able to learn to read but has to work really hard at it because he eyes don't track. She's been through vision therapy twice which made a huge difference but she still has to work at keeping her eyes focused (she's 16 now). When she was in 2nd grade, she started complaining about not being able to read what her teacher wrote on the board, so we took her for an eye exam and she had 20/20 vision. It wasn't until she had a neuropsych eval and scored really low on processing speed that we learned that how the eyes work together isn't typically assessed at a routine eye exam. DD has a cousin who's an adult who has strabismus that is corrected with contacts, but even so, she and dd both share a lot of the same observations about how hard they have to work at reading. You mentioned clumsiness, dd appeared to be very clumsy when she was little, before vision therapy. Both my ds and dd were suspected of having adhd when they were in early elementary, but neuropsych evals for both showed they don't have adhd, just had other things going on that had similar symptoms.

I hope some of that helps - fwiw, it sounds like you have reason to suspect there might be something meaningful behind the relatively low processing speed score.

Best wishes,

polarbear

Thanks for your help. I guess I just feel kind of overwhelmed that there are so many potential causes of his low processing speed and don't know where to start. We are not the wretched of the earth, but if I were to explore every potential cause listed above it would overwhelm the family budget.

The obvious potential causes that are visual/OT-related are due to stuff he inherited from me, and processing speed has always been one of my intellectual strengths. I did hate writing because my hand couldn't keep up with my brain, but I was still always the first one done with any assignment, I read around 1,000 word/minute, etc. Our hypermobility is EDS-III, i.e., the mild type, and it may well contribute to our fine motor difficulties and general clumsiness but hasn't been an issue for me otherwise. I don't see signs of OCPD in either of us, but it was interesting to read about the association.

I have read up on dysgraphia, which my mom (who is a teacher) used to joke about having me tested for when I was a kid because of my own handwriting issues. I don't *think* our issues rise to that level, but I'm not an expert and would be open to the possibility. My son actively enjoys writing and has created a series of "books" that he writes at home. They aren't always totally legible, but he doesn't mind the process.

My husband isn't especially worried about the processing speed thing since he was a very successful student and processing speed clearly isn't his strength. I haven't let the poor guy finish a sentence in years.

My son is usually quite compliant about finishing the limited amount of homework he has gotten so far in K. It also doesn't seem to take him very long, but of course, it's all been material that has been very easy for him. (It's all been math homework, and he can add two-digit numbers in his head, has a rudimentary understanding of addition and subtraction of negative numbers, etc.)

I feel like I should probably work with him on the fine motor stuff over the summer, ask about the possibility of visual issues and school at his next ophthalmology appointment (though again, he's not having any trouble with reading so far). Otherwise, I should probably wait and see. I guess I just don't know if any of his issues are real red flags or if any of the causes seem more likely than the others--or if my kid is just a bright kid with low processing speed.

Thank you for listening to me ramble! Any other thoughts are definitely appreciated.

I do find the correlation between processing speed and EDS interesting, but it would still be mysterious to me with regards to my son because I'm the one he gets his EDS-III from and am the fast-processing-speed parent.

If someone with expertise in psychoed evaluation, and who knows your child, isn't too concerned about the low PSI, then I wouldn't invest too much energy into something that doesn't appear to have IRL effects at the moment. I will clarify, though, that mental processing speed is not the same thing as fine-motor speed, although there is overlap in how we assess them. You appear to be describing yourself as having high mental processing speed, but low fine motor skills, which could equally be true of your child, based on the available data. Your SO, OTOH, appears to have slower mental processing speed (but obviously has strong enough overall cognition that it hasn't been an impediment to progress in any areas important to him).

Thanks very much to all commenters. I think I do need to take a deep breath for now and not borrow trouble ahead of time. For now, I'm just going to enjoy my delightful and imaginative kid and will keep an eye on school progress and teacher feedback next year.

Thanks again!