Sometimes I wonder if ADD is partially a consequence of high processing speed. When your mind works at the speed of light and pictures and ideas appear from every mental direction, it can be very easy to get pulled down a series of tangents to the topic at hand (no, I don't have ADD, but I do process information very quickly, and often have to struggle to stay focused).
I don't know much about ADD and wouldn't be surprised if there was also some anatomy or distinct biochemistry at work, too. But still, it wouldn't surprise me to see some kind connection to processing speed (and maybe working memory, too).
Feel free to say YOU'RE SO WRONG, VAL!!!
I've always thought that was the case with me (just... fast, multi-track thinking/processing). It wasn't until my son was formally diagnosed that all started making sense. If it's just G/T it shouldn't be that debilitating, should it? I actually failed a college level course because the instructional pace was too slow and I couldn't stay focused. Who
does that!! ADHD, that's who. sigh.
My DS tested low-ish in processing speed, though, so... there you go: "The discrepancy between is perceptual reasoning and processing speed is statistically significant and occurs in approximately 12 percent of the time in the general population." (The same was true with PR and verbal comprehension, occurring in only 7 percent). Suffice to say he's very, very visual spatial, and really sucky at anything audio/linguistic.
The doc had said there was a lot of the testing that was inaccurate, and I wonder sometimes if the processing speed issues were because of his language and audio processing issues. She thought it was because of ADHD as well.
