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...)
