Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment WISC-IV: Processing speed much lower

We got back DS7's scores today and his PSI is much lower than the rest.

The sub-scores in all the other indexes were 16s and 18s (with a block design of 14), but Coding was 8 and Symbol Search was 10. The PSI, while still being technically average, is 41 points lower than the next lowest Index (Working Memory). The psychologists report said that it was due to his "tendencies to be highly methodical, systematically linear and diligent when problem-solving the different tasks". But, that just seems like a huge amount of perfectionism. Should I be concerned?

If it is significant, what does it possibly indicate and who do I talk to about exploring it further?

ETA: I should probably also note that his fluency scores on the WJ-III achievement are fine, math fluency is 125 and reading fluency is 139. I'm not sure if those constitute "real world" performance or not, but we do have other timed situations where he did fine.

Thank you!

How is his learning/acquisition of new information on the spot? A big part of Coding is learning what symbol is associated with what number in the key. In other words if one has to refer constantly to the key, he would be too slow which would get him a low score. In order to get a good score on Coding one should not refer to the key but should have learned the associations so that the key becomes unnecessary.

By this token, someone who has a low Coding score might have difficulty on memory such as the California Verbal Learning Test or some other memory tests: (Weschsler Memory scale, etc.) It's worth checking his memory.

I don't have a lot of advice but my DS12 had a similar result - high VCI, somewhat high PRI, moderate WMI, and below average PSI (72 point spread between highest and lowest!) Still trying to decipher what it all means, but wanted to say hello and say if you do find any interesting resources addressing this issue please post them and I'll do the same!


Grif

DS8 has a similar spread, mamaandmore, and like gratified3, I tend to see issues with speed. He gets wiggy when he has to race to finish something, and this actually makes him perform slower than he would if there were no time limit. I don't think that's perfectionism, exactly. More like stress causing him to be unable to concentrate.

I don't see that my particular child needs much repetition, but I can certainly see how that might be possible in a kid like this. It is something to watch for, though I wonder if that may have more to do with working memory, maybe? Or how working memory gets moved to long term memory? Not sure...

For me, I think of the speed issue as part of DS8's asynchronous development, as is so often visible in GT kids. He is as deep as a kid several years older, but he processes things at the speed of an average child his age. It can be a bit of a roadblock at times, especially if a teacher doesn't understand that "smart" and "fast" aren't necessarily the same thing. When he was in public school, we did hear "How can he need harder material if he doesn't finish the material I give him?" It can be a challenge.

If it helps to make you feel any better, I have seen improvement in DS8's speed over the past couple of years, just as I would expect to see improvement in any child as he got older. He's still not going to win any races, but he is progressing normally and the mismatch seems to matter less as he gets older.

Grif- The processing speed for us was such an outlier that after a few days to really think about it, I'm not sure it means much of anything. His VCI was only 10 points higher than his WMI and PRI, so they were all fairly close together, the PSI was the only one that was extremely low. I think it gives us some information, he doesn't process quickly, but I just don't see that translating into a real-world learning disability.

Kriston and Gratified3, both of your kids sounds a lot like DS7. He isn't necessarily slow in daily situations, but if he's given too much information at once and not given time to process it, he kind of shuts down. He has to have time to process things and the more information I try to shove in behind the clog, the longer it takes for him to untangle it all and move on. I've learned that mostly "I don't remember" isn't a cop-out, he really *doesn't* remember, but if I give him a week or two, he'll remember it and also have made some wonderful connections and leaps with the information. If we try to move ahead too quickly, nothing good comes from it.

I hadn't really put together that *that* was what processing speed issues looked like. I had thought it was more the kid who takes an hour to finish a single problem or who gets distracted by his own shadow when he has things he needs to work on. And I knew that it was a common issue with gifted kids to have a relatively lower processing speed, but to see 99%+ indexes and then suddenly see a 34% sitting in the middle made my heart stop!