Oh gosh, it's something to keep in mind but our educational psychologist said a lower processing speed is common in gifted kids.
My DD8 took the Wisc-IV a year ago. Her scores: 99.7% Verbal, 99% perceptual, a GAI 140 (99.5%) but a PSI of 34%.
For the last three years, I have had to deal with problems relating to her "slowness." This year, she cannot seem to write down all the homework in her assignment book -- "I don't have enough time, mom." Thank God, her teacher this year completely accepted that her PSI is out of sync with her cognitive abilities (and even researched gifted kids' issues the SAME NIGHT we talked, and confirmed back to me that gifted kids often work slower than average ones.) We came up with several solutions, one being that DD8 bring home ALL her books, so even if she does not write down all the homework, we can figure out homework anyhow. She is still one of the top performing students in the class, despite the fact that she has missed homework; fact is, she just understands math concepts so well she tests almost perfectly on all tests!
To give you even more confidence, here is a quote about "slowness" from our psychologist's report: " [DD8] was relatively weaker on processing speed tests. It appears that she is far more concerned with accuracy than speed. . .This much lower processing speed coupled with superior reasoning and problem-solving ability is not unusual as gifted children are often more concerned with accuracy over speed."
My advice is to be prepared for issues that may arise from "being a slow poke" , but not to worry about the long-term issues, because the scores show that your child is gifted. Enjoy the ride -- I do! DD8 got into a great University gifted program that meets on Saturdays and she is currently working on computer programming.
Loving Mom
