2. Does anyone know if there's a way of differentiating slow processing speed from pathological perfectionism? 3. How in the world do I educate my son? I was hoping the DYS would help me with this, but I'm not sure he'll get in with this kind of result. We applied a few months ago and they wanted more information but this is again straddling the fence. We have a tutor but she skips all over the place trying to figure out what he does and doesn't know and what level to teach him at. Help!
I have a child with a processing speed that, while fairly average, is significantly lower than his other scores. This functions as a "bottleneck" (a term that I think Grinity coined, and I love it!): it's not an LD, but it can really get in his way. He's got the brain of a 14yo, but he works that brain at the speed of a 9yo. It's hard.
My DS9's issues are not perfectionism. I would suggest looking at where your 7yo is slow. Watch him work. Does he produce quickly but second-guess himself? Or does he seem to dawdle while getting to the answer. Our DS9 is the latter. (Our DS6 is a perfectionist, so the differences are very clear to me.)
I think perfectionism is the easier sort of slow processing speed to deal with, though I'll admit that this could be because I am a recovering perfectionist myself, so I have more experience with it. Dealing with perfectionism is pretty straightforward: get kids to see that "good enough" is sometimes good enough.
OTOH, Slow-but-deep kids are hard for people to understand. We tend to associate smart with fast, even though they are different things. Slow-but-deep just looks like time-wasting or messing around, and it tends to make authority figures like teachers and parents angry.
What options do you have for schooling? What are you doing now and how is that working? What other options would you consider?
There are ways to handle a slow processing speed (specifically the kind that's not perfectionism-related), but IMHO, this issue can limit the effectiveness of solutions like grade acceleration. Our DS9 just doesn't seem like he could keep up with the older kids, but he craves serious challenge and acts out if he's not thinking hard enough. There are apparently exercises that kids can do to work on speed. I keep meaning to ask our tester about these and work on them starting in the fall. I haven't gotten around to it yet--busy summer!
Homeschooling has worked well for us, FWIW. I don't think it's the only way, but it is a way. Basically, giving him a few hard problems and allowing him the time to chew on them for a while seems to be the best strategy. That could work in any educational situation, provided the school is willing to use it. The worst thing to do for our DS9 is to give him lots and lots of easy problems. It takes him *forever* to do that sort of assignment. Timed tests throw him off and hurt his performance. He actually works more slowly if he's conscious of being timed. That seems to be anxiety-related.
I'm happy to talk more if it helps you. I feel like I'm just rambling...
