Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Difficult problems faster than simple math facts?

My son likes math and is quite strong in it. He spontaneously figured out addition, subtraction and even multiplication when he was three and has always delighted in problem solving.

I have noticed that this year (first grade) he is quite slow when doing math minutes (like he will do 2-3 in a minute). When he took the WPPSI at the age of four, my son's processing speed score was 100, over forty points below other index scores. We explained this to his teacher and she doesn't make him feel bad about speed. After a mad minute, she then lets students complete the unfinished problems at their leisure. My son does not feel bad about being slow and he knows (because his dad is a mathematician and told him) that speed is not the measure of a good mathematician. So this isn't necessarily a problem.

Here is what I find odd. He can do much more complicated problems just as quickly as easy "math facts." For example, we were doing some problems from Zaccaro's Challenge Math over the weekend and my son could do multiple step problems involving multiplication, division and addition of multi-digit numbers (that would involve carrying but I understand they don't do that these days) almost as quickly as he can recall a simple math fact like 7+5. (FWIW, he also has an excellent memory and got a 18 or 19 on the working memory component of his WPPSI). I find it so odd that he can mentally add mulit-digit numbers together in the same amount of time it would take him to recall a simple math fact.

I should also note that my son doesn't otherwise seem slow in school. He is in first grade but reading at a fifth grade level. He reads quickly and fluently. His handwriting was a bit slow/labored for a while but with lots of practice he now seems to be writing easily.

Is this common? I'm also wondering if he is quicker at home than in school. He has some tics and may have Tourette's. While I don't believe he is self-conscious about them, I have read that some kids are slower in the classroom because they are suppressing tics.

I'd love to hear any insight that you might have about this discrepancy.

That sounds like a hallmark of giftedness, actually ("hard problems are easy, and easy problems are hard").

DS was pretty much exactly like that in first grade (average PSI, off-the-charts everything else). He can write short sentences easily, though long ideas he has a hard time with. We're getting him into keyboarding now, and we think that will ultimately help the speed issue.

He gets conceptual math easily but had an awful time learning combinations of 20.

My son is similar, however, that big discrepancy between VCI and processing speed generally is suspicious of ADHD. My 9 year old does have ADHD with big discrepancy between processing speed and everything else. He's in algebra but counts simple addition on his fingers. 😏 LOL, it takes some getting used to!

Not sure I agree with that. I think it is very common for gifted kids to have average processing speed. ADHD is an orthogonal concern.

I don't think he has ADHD. When he took the WPPSI the psychologist noted that he is slow and meticulous but that's probably part of his personality and not necessarily a problem. She also noted that his focus was "exceptional", especially as he was given more challenging problems. His teachers have always reported that he is focused and engaged at school.

Ds9 has PS and WM at 99.9th percentile and still complains of this. He says "child x can do easy problems quicker than me but I can do hard problems quicker than him". He also points out that when he does speed drills he gets them all right whereas the kid who was really fast got several wrong. He can now do speed drills quite fast but he will never be the fastest.

My daughter is like this and I see it as a retrieval problem. she has a hard time pulling random facts from long term memory. Her working memory on the WISC was 96th percentile but if you ask her 8X7 she looks blank. She knows the answer but it might take 8 seconds for her to say it. It seems from ADHD in her case. She has a big problem with organization and I think the file cabinets in her brain are about as disorganized as her bedroom. If you don't know where your 8X7 file is it's going to take a while to pull it out.

My kids were like this. I always thought the reason was that the harder problems held their attention better.

I hated math minutes-- or whatever it was that they were called back in 1974-1978. I never actually "memorized" them. I memorized-- temporarily, anyway-- squares and cubes to some outrageously high value as a middle schooler for some purpose I can't quite recall now, but I remember sitting on the swings at the park with my best friend, singing them back and forth for hours for a few weeks.

I learned my "math facts" when I used them for something with an actual purpose. When I needed to have them memorized, it was nearly instantaneous. Same with information from the periodic table, neuroanatomy, pharmacology, protein biochemistry, metabolic pathways,you name it.

My brain refuses to memorize information without context or purpose. It's apparently just that simple.


DD is made along very similar lines. Oddly, both of us are excellent trivia hounds, and with near-eidectic memory, but it's contextual and usually spatial (at least in my case, though DD has a combination of mine and her dad's)-- DH has auditory eidectic memory, lucky thing.

DH and I both struggled with "math" in early elementary grades, fwiw.

Memorization is not our strong suit, let's just say.

My son is similar and also scored noticeably lower on processing speed. I don't know that he's actually faster with the harder problem though. He's just much faster than I would expect given how long the simpler problem takes.

He won't memorize math facts but seems to be picking them up as he uses them. I guess it's okay with me, because he does seem to be making progress.

I was similar in school. I remember in 7th grade when timed tests were a focus, I suddenly thought I was bad at math. By Calculus I was one of the top students in class again though. I just never did well on timed tests. I feel like my kid has such an advantage because I can tell him not to sweat it. I felt so bad about it!