Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Processing Speed

My DS8 has been tested and identified as PG, but his processing speed is very slow - so when he has to take a timed test he generally scores 100% on all questions he answers. But since he doesn't complete the entire test, his scores are lowered. Yes he is a perfectionist and wants to make sure anything he answers is correct, but when he must complete a computer timed assessment - he just can't get through it.

Any advice on how to help him get through these timed tests?

Thanks in advance,
Debbie

Is he in school? Does the processing speed issue show up in his ID test results? If so, maybe you can get the school to make accommodations for him to not have to finish the test, or to set a more realistic goal for him.

How slow is his processing speed in relation to his other abilities? My eldest dd, who is HG, is slightly below avg in terms of processing speed, which is a huge difference from working memory, perceptual reasoning, and verbal for her. She has accommodations for extra time written into her Accelerated Learning Plan (ALP) at school and she had a 504 plan in elementary. She did have an OT diagnosis of sensory processing disorder (overresponsive to sensory input) at 7.5, which may have been why they were willing to make accommodations for her as well.

We haven't sought extra time for her on tests like the SAT, though, b/c I don't know that she has a significant enough dx to warrant that and I believe that there is some benefit to her trying to learn to work within the contraints of what life requires at times. We worked on reducing anxiety regarding timed tests first, though, before we tried to get her to deal with getting her to work faster.

I can't say that she really works as quickly as would be desirable still, but she is able to keep up with a pretty heavy school workload and extracurriculars while maintaining her grades at least. She is 11 now.

A few techniques we have tried (once the anxiety was reduced re timers):

*beat the clock at home (work as fast as you can on an assignment with more attn given to speed than accuracy)
*time yourself when working (give yourself 10 or 15 minutes and then see what % of the work you've gotten done in that time, multiply it out, & see how long it will take to complete at that rate)
*stop every 5 or 10 minutes of work and record or reflect on what you've been doing (did you pet the dog, respond to a question your sister had, get distracted by anything and stop thinking about your work...)

Thank you for the suggestions. He is in school, and to be honest the in-school things haven't bothered us - as we know he 'knows' the material - so when he only gets 70% completed on those timed facts, we're ok with it - as we've learned through testing about his perfectionism over the processing speed. Yes, his average processing speed did show up on testing - it was way out of line (100) in comparison with all the other tests.

This really hit home yesterday as he took the SCAT for CTY and only completed 72% of the tests - which is the normal amount for him on any timed test. NOW that will be held against him. I know he can take it over again, but I'm afraid he'll come out disappointed again that he didn't finish it. He's upset now, and sees himself as a failure / a stupid kid / etc...

At this point I'm at a loss ... Not sure what to do.

My dd's processing speed on the WISC was in the 42nd percentile as compared to mid-upper 90s on everything else with VCI and PRI being the highest.

We have those same self image issues with dd9, who isn't quite as slow as my older dd, but she has other issues. That's a really tough thing. I'm sorry. I hope that you can work on building up his self image.

Some kids with low scores on processing speed are actually quite fast at processing but are too perfectionistic to demonstrate it on a test. Other kids actually think and respond slowly. Some have both. Do you have an idea of which your child is?

If it is only perfectionistic behavior, one thing to do is to try to figure out how to allow him some flexabilty to 'rush through' sometimes and 'double check' at other times. Some of the poster here have found that while they were in classrooms well below their readiness level, they were anxious, and took refuge in doing things 100%. The cure for that is to be in classrooms where the work is actually intellectually challenging (aside from timed multiplication facts)
Does any of this fit?

Grinity

Oh yes! This fits 100%. It is perfectionism, and engagement. If the questions are too simple - he slows down even more. So on more complex questions/situations he speeds up. During his testing they noted it various times - he is engaged so there isn't any disability it is just the challenging factors. So no challenge = slower processing. For me it doesn't make sense, but I am not in his shoes, and he can't explain it.

Just a thought. My sons also have low processing speeds. One day my youngest was working on the computer he turned and asked me why the easy questions are hard and the hard questions are easy.

I feel once they have mastered the easy stuff their brains move to the next more interesting harder stuff. Now that their brains are fixed onto more complicated material, it's hard for them to back step. Which requires them to stop and think. Hope this makes since to someone.

Kind of like walking. It's easier to walk forward than it is to walk backwards.

We are dealing with the same thing. Someone in a previous post mentioned www.lumosity.com which has some brain games however ds6 shied away from the ones that required too quick of a response. Maybe we can work our way up to those. You can do a 7 day free trial of all the games. Some games are free all the time.

I think we may be dealing with perfectionism and slowing down for easier questions but I'm not sure. Another thing that might not apply to your son but worth mentioning... our psychologist said that there is a high correlation between ADHD and slow processing speed.

Yes it does make sense ... thanks for your reply!

Interesting, I can understand the correlation. My youngest was tested for ADHD at the same time he had all of the other tests. He didn't have ADHD. He is also very fast in subject matter that interests him.

Thanks for the idea on Lumosity.

Our thought was attention, and partially the reason we had him tested. But they stated there is no possible way he has ADD or ADHD or any other learning disorder. That it is not intellectual, he has the intelligence to do it, it is a behavior that he has - perfectionism. But what I still don't understand is why they he doesn't put more of that perfeccionistic tendency into completing it 100% - now that would be ideal!

Have you read the book Misdiagnosis by Jim Webb?

I probably need to read Misdiagnosis. I think ds does have ADHD although a big contributing factor to his behavior is boredom so I am keeping that in mind as we work through everything. I don't want him defined by his ADHD when there is so much more to him. He also has slow processing speed and is probably gifted in several areas.

This is not at all unusual. I wouldn't truly call it slow processing, I would call it poor fit of his educational environment to his learning needs for too long - resulting in unhealthy perfectionism.

My son - now 13 - described it as: The easy questions are so easy that I think they couldn't possibly be this easy, so I study them carefully to figure out what the trick is.

How sad!
Grinity

I'm reading How the Gifted Brain Learns right now as well. I've found it to have a lot of good info on twice exceptionality and underachievement as well as ways to reverse patterns of underachievement. You might want to check that one out as well as the Misdiagnosis book.

In my dd's instance, I think that she does just tick more slowly. For instance, when we are volunteering at our local humane society, I can clean 2/3 of the cat cages in the time that she does well less than 1/3 of them. Although she does have some perfectionism issues, I really don't think that they play out in regard to litter boxes and cat food.

If your ds did well on the block design part of the PRI, which is also timed, and seems to be more impacted by perfectionism than true slower speed, it may be something that he will improve with more appropriately challenging work. My dd was in the 25th percentile for the block design test and the 99th & 99.9th for the other two tests on PRI, which again showed the slower speed there. I do think that some of her anxiety issues related to being timed came into play on that test as well, though.

Wow. We are experiencing this now with DC. This might be the answer we are looking for.

This is interesting. DS7 has attention issues that I'm trying to get to the root of. He's balking at all the testing we've done lately (vision, CognitiveMap, initial hearing test), so I'm laying off for awhile. We don't have any gifted specialists here, but his pysch is very in tune with him. She thinks he's easily distracted from tasks by racing thoughts, which is part of gifted traits. He's not a clear cut case according to her.

For sure, I see what you guys are saying - he was only tuned into math from algebra on. Before that, it was a struggle jumping from topic to topic as they all didn't hold his interest, hands on learning or not. Yet he'd come out with little calculations here and there (number of people in a restaurant, prime numbers in odd places etc). So we didn't do drills, just concepts.

I checked through his Wisc IV report and his processing speed is in the +70th percentile while the rest are in the +99%. This is what necessitated the calculation of the GAI. At the time, the tester told me that he was processing quickly (no need to relook after once or twice to remember the symbols), but he was writing laboriously (he has fine motor skill issues) and after a while, stopped to crack a joke.

He also stops processing when presented wtih a new task, say, a completely different math problem from what he knows. He does need persuasion to get started, but it's generally alright. Is this part of perfectionism?

I read Misdiagnosis which contains this statement: "if a child can sit down and do Lego for 45mins, he basically doesn't have ADHD". Is this the experience of most parents here? Mine can do Lego the whole day, but he does quickly zone out when he has to do something uninteresting to him.

Another page that I found very heldpful was this:
http://www.sengifted.org/articles_counseling/Lind_BeforeReferringAGiftedChildForADD.shtml

It's so confusing. I'm starting to wonder if I can ever get a straight answer. Whether he does have ADHD, APD or not, I'd probably be looking at a non-med strategy (my initial gut reaction/feel) anyway.

Wow you said it !! His BD on the PRI was the lowest at 95 (other than the PSI (50) .. and the tester did state he would do much better in an appropriate educational setting. And that is where the idea of Move or Homeschool came into play.

It's not easy finding that 'appropriate setting', and we've actually thought about moving!

Did you ask whoever tested your DS about ADHD? As we were advised our DS does not have any learning disability - and ruled out everything due to the testing, other than the fact that he is profoundly gifted.

We don't have anyone near us who has worked with gifted children, so we made a trip to get the testing done. It wasn't easy to make that decision, and now that we have all this information, I wonder when we'll have all the answers to the new questions that arise daily, maybe our son will have to provide that for us in the future!

The tester (who is the psych he's seeing now) noted his squirelly-ness last year and suggested breaking up his WISC testing into 2 sessions. During the test, he was distracted; he even read bits of a book as he did some portions of the test. She didn't stop him because he was doing ok, and she felt his boredom was because of his PGness. A year later, I'm still on to the same questions. She's unsure, basically, because she's never tested anyone so high.

She started doing the Nepsy-II on him earlier this week, but we're putting it on hold as he's very unwilling to continue. FWIW, he keeps saying it's his really strong inner voice that "keeps me very occupied with other thoughts".

We live in outside of the US, so that's going to be a very long commute to anywhere.

blob .. you're right about the long commute. I'd search for someone who has worked with gifted kids, make contacts to find someone if the psych has never worked with GT kids.

Good luck!

Cricket I've been pondering what you wrote. He did 95% on the BD which was his lowest score other than the PSI. So are you stating that with the BD score it is perfectionism or it is showing processing speed.

Sorry for my questions, but as I've already said this is all new to me, and it is like learning a new language - but even harder! Thanks in advance - Debbie

Sorry not to have responded earlier; I just saw your latest post. Although a 95th percentile score on BD was lower than the other parts of the PRI index, that is still a very good score and I wouldn't view that as showing low speed. My dd with the slower speed got a 25th percentile score on BD and 99th & 99.9th on the two other tests in PRI. That's a big difference.

I do, honestly, think that she could have scored more in the 50th-75th range on BD had the tester not kept reminding her to work fast. She apparently totally gave up, handed the blocks back, and said that she was done with that test and couldn't do it. I still do think that she is slower, though, but anxiety exacerbated the speed thing for her making it below avg in that one testing instance rather than avg, which is probably more accurate for her.

I may not have been clear in my earlier post. What I was getting at was that, if he did well on BD (which he did), since it is a timed test I'd think that he isn't truly a slow processor, but rather has other issues that might make him slower in certain circumstances. Perfectionism could be one of those issues.