Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Processing Speed as a measure of intelligence

First of all, I am not limiting processing speed to the simple measures on IQ test such as the WISC IV. I am thinking more broadly of processing speed as reflected in daily life.

I know that some people, including Dr. Reynolds (RIAS), do not believe that processing speed has a place in measuring intelligence. However, after close encounters with both super fast and profoundly slow as well as fairly normal speeds in my own kids, I cannot but conclude that processing speed has a definite, lasting and cumulative effect on achievement as well as the development of intelligence.

For example, all other things equal, a brisk processing speed allows a student exposure to a larger wealth of ideas, including vocabulary. One reason why DD11 is significantly behind DS11 in standard measures is that DS can fit so much more into the same hours in the day. He can easily finish reading several books on a single day whereas DD may read one or two on a good day. If you multiply that by even five to ten years, the difference is tremendous.

Of course, I don't believe that processing speed is the most important measure of intelligence - only that it makes a significant difference.

I would agree that there are benefits to excellent processing speed. DD9 would be an example. A teacher gave her a chapter book at the end of the day yesterday to read at home. She was finished with it within an hour of arriving home. FWIW, she had an excellent PSI on the WISC, too. I think her processing speed places her at a distinct advantage on timed tests. Also, when she is motivated, she digests material incredibly quickly. She is a very quick study.

While it is often thought to be the measured portion of intelligence testing that is "least" important, being a "quick thinker" definitely benefits DD.

Of course, her WMI isn't that great (although still comfortably above-average), giving her a definite "absent-minded professor" presentation.

I'm actually interested in the interplay between processing speed and working memory. DD never memorizes material, but she ABSORBS it, quickly and deeply. She clearly remembers what is interesting to her, and fortunately, much interests her. I do wonder how being a quick thinker impacts development of memory. I wonder whether DD relies on rote memory less often (and is a result, it is underdeveloped), because her store of knowledge is large due to her curiosity and ability to think quickly.

Interesting find, squishys!

I'm actually interested in the interplay between processing speed and working memory. DD never memorizes material, but she ABSORBS it, quickly and deeply. She clearly remembers what is interesting to her, and fortunately, much interests her. I do wonder how being a quick thinker impacts development of memory. I wonder whether DD relies on rote memory less often (and is a result, it is underdeveloped), because her store of knowledge is large due to her curiosity and ability to think quickly.


This is DD and myself-- to a tee.

It can be a surprising struggle when you run up against something where the brute-force memorization is necessary, however, because you simply lack the skills.

She has a better digit span than I do, for sure-- my digit span is embarrassingly small. About four digits. Seriously.

So both of us have impairments in working memory, but mine are more significant than hers, though they seem focal-- only numeric, not verbal, auditory, or visual. Hers seem to be more global in nature.

Most people NEVER know that, though, because the other elements in our profile more than compensate under normal circumstances.

My PG sib, who is a STEM worker, never "memorized" trig identities, because it was more efficient to re-derive them from the law of sines and law of cosines than it was to brute-force memorize them, and then retrieve them from the arbitrary storage location that would have resulted from rote memorization. My sib does also have an enormous memory span, but apparently decided that processing speed won out over memory on this task. This same sib would undoubtedly score poorly on any measure of processing speed that involved fine-motor dexterity, although silent reading speed has been clocked at ~800 wpm. Needless to say, my mother introduced typing at age 8.

I have another sib who has relatively weaker working memory, and thus poor rote memory, but a very retentive memory for concepts, more like those described upthread. One of my children is like this, too. One of the interesting manifestations of this is that, when performing in drama (or music), there can be verbatim inaccuracies which retain the sense and emotional impact (or chord, melodic, and figural structure, for music) with sufficient quality that only someone who had the script/score in front of them (or who had otherwise memorized it themselves) would be likely to pick up on the alterations.

And, our most commonly-used processing speed measures are, at best, mixed measures.

Is this unusual? I didn't memorize them either, except sin^2+cos^2=1 and the definitions of tan, sec, and csc.

aeh, that is fascinating-- DD has done that paraphrasing trick at full speed with music, mathematics, reading aloud, etc. from the time she was tiny.

DH is one that derives relationships rather than memorizing, too. DD is much like him that way. I'm less extreme, but I still tend to only remember what I actually use a lot, and even then I often rely upon relational constructs and a single memorized core (so I will recall a full equation/relationship, and then collapse it for use in simplified/ideal conditions, say).

It's FAR easier for me to remember single cross-over points in unit conversions, too, and to just do the extended back and forth conversions to get to the crossover point. I only realized that this was an oddball way of doing things once I was teaching Gen Chem students to do unit conversions using a unit/dimensional/factor method-- most of them found it APPALLING that I'd do a fifteen factor calculation just to avoid knowing the conversion between miles and kilometers (my only length unit conversion is cm = in).

I'm not sure that processing speed has that much to do with reading speed. My DS9 has a depressed processing speed in comparison to the rest of his intellectual profile, but reads faster than most gifted adults. He does, however, have a photographic memory. He read the first Harry Potter book during the summer before first grade. I wasn't sure if it was above his reading level or not, so I asked him to tell me what happened in the book. He responded by telling me the title of each chapter from memory and then using that information to tell me about the plot of each chapter. When I realized what he was doing, I started asking him about the chapters in random order and he was still able to summarize each chapter. What I am trying to say is that if you're PG, I'm not sure that processing speed matters as much because you can work around it.

I'm actually a little confused about what processing speed really means. DD learns fast but her work tempo is slow. Her memorization skills are incredible, but she is absentminded and off task more often than I'd like. It takes her forever to get out of the house, but she always completes tests on time. She goes off on tangents but is highy accurate. She reads very fast with great comprehension, but takes a while to produce beautiful writing. So...?? (I have no numbers for her on processing speed as she took the RIAS.)

Wait, are you talking about my child? LOL, that is an EXACT description of my DD.

I am also curious about this, considering my DD's two highest scores are PSI and WMI. We expected her to have a high working memory IQ, just from knowing her and how she operates, but the PSI was a bit of a surprise.

She has always been an incredibly fast reader, from the time she taught herself to read at 4, but I have never correlated that to PS. More recently, she has really started to enjoy timed activities, and she does seem to have a distinct advantage in that area that I would attribute to her PSI.

She also both absorbs, and memorizes, most of the auditory instruction in the classroom. Many times, she will tell me about a topic they are discussing as a class (Eleanor Roosevelt, human body, etc), and I can tell that she is repeating word for word the way it was told to her. Months....years later, she has still retained those facts the way it was first presented to her. Which makes it extremely hard on the rare occasion that a teacher tells her something that isn't 100% accurate!

On the other hand, her VSI is much lower, at 106 (she is in the 140s for everything else).