Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional Improving Processing Speed ?

This is interesting to me, because as far as I know, there isn't any subtest in Verbal that requires a pencil. I'm most familiar with the U.S. version of the test. I know that there is some variation between different versions. Can anyone help me out here, without giving away specific test items, of course.

Rachsr - would you be willing to post the subtests that make up the Verbal portion? I've mightly curious what the names of the subsections are, and how much spread there is in there. I'm trying to figure out if your kid is 'nicely gifted' or 'super gifted' - which we call LOG here - level of giftedness. It mostly matters in being impressed at how much of a people please he would have to be to be obedient in school. How hard is he working to deal with faking an interest in academic material well below his 'readiness to learn' level? He sounds like a good natured kid, but I don't ever trust that to last indefinitly. I'm so glad to hear that he is going to a new school next year that has double Math and Lego Robotics!!!!

BTW - it doesn't suprise me at all that he doesn't like Math, as presented in school. My son hated math in 4th grade, and progressed to 'slighly positive' once he hit the middle sschool honors classes + a grade skip. (He's quite unusually high LOG, but your son might be exactly the same, actually) It wasn't until he got to work at his own level and really see Math in it's glory this year in PreCalc that he fell in love. And it's so sweet to watch.

Smiles,
Grinity

Are you in my head? lol. I need to make up that rule for myself in the morning. A whole houseful of temptation--so true!

You know I think this explains some about myself, but even more so about my brother, and my grandfather (both called slow as molasses frequently). That maybe it isn't a processing speed issue but an adhd inattentive thing. I know my dd11 gets frustrated when I don't answer her right away--I have been telling her to be patient with my slow processing speed but actually it is probably more being distracted.

Interesting thoughts here.

I'm happy for you to borrow the ideas, but I mostly want you to borrow the process and bring him into the process, if he is mature enough to be interested. My son is living away at boarding school, and he has been been doing the daily problem solving that I carved into him to create his own solutions for the last 2 years. Recently he was getting out of the car and said, causally, "I make it a policy to always carry a writing impliment." I grinned and grabbed my pen from the 'car pen spot' and held it up in salute.

That's what builds automatisity - good habits. One needs the frame of mind to search for which good habits suit one, and be ready to keep modifying the habits until they work.


Actually, I am hoping that you will be his consultant, to help him brainstorm a schedule, brainstorm a reward system, and help him monitor if and where it needs tweaking. If he melts down emotionally at this, them perhaps you need to do it for him, but he may be mature enough to find this to be an interesting project, which is why I'm suggesting you find out what bothers HIM the most.

I wanted to pull these quotes out to show you that he IS being affected by his bottlenecks. If you think he is lazy, unmotivated, skating by, then most teachers are probably thinking the same thing. If you are yelling at him every simgle morning, isn't it likely that he is internalizing a self image of himself as 'babyish' or 'unable to do things right?'

I am not suggesting that you are doing anything other than what I have done, blamed my child for not doing as good as his best day, on his normal days. That is the halmark of many 2E kids.

To put it another way. Suppose that you had to go through each day with a 20 pound weight strapped to your head. Wouldn't you try to 'skate away with the least possible effort?' Wouldn't you struggle to keep doing what you percieve that other people in your role who don't have 20 pound weights strapped to their heads do. Wouldn't you judge yourself by what the others were able to accomplish? And what if you were preparing a wonderful fancy dinner for a favorite family member, and you somehow managed to do it, because you were so very motivated, wouldn't you reproach yourself even more the next day when you returned to your struggle to do the ordinary things? How would you feel about those looks you got from the family member who is thinking, "If he or she can cook such a beautiful meal for my birthday dinner, why is tonight's meal so minimal and plain? He or she must not be trying today."

This can be very hard to hear, and I do want you to set standards for your son. But my Husband and I would have discussion after discussion trying to understand why our son seemed able to behave perfectly on one day (particularly if that day had special learning in it) and then behave dreadfully on the next day.

What I am hoping you will do is to adopt a 'value-free' vocabulary to refer to your son's challenges. His level of motivation may be high, but not high enough. His organizational skills may be strong in one area, but weak in getting ready for school. He may be strong in following through if someone else creates the structure, but weak in creating the structure for himself. Perhaps he Daydreams while getting read for school. This might be a weakness while trying to catch a bus, but a strength when he gets to school and there is little for him to learn, but he is motivated to not interrupt the classroom activities so he has to entertain himself.

Sadly, you can't work on everything at the same time. It can be challenging to decide what to do first: Psychoeducational eval, so that if he needs medicine to get that 20 pound rock off his head he gets it? What about Occupational Therapy so that he can learn to be strong in his body? Ride a 2 wheeler? Play kickball and wall ball with the other boys on the playground? Get his mornig routine in order? Drill Handwriting so that writing 3 sentences is easy - or start by drilling the verbal part of thinking of 3 sentences to write? Do you want to start entirely with yourself - organizing the environment so that there is less disraction? Starting a new 'fancy vocabulary word of the week?' (If so, I like the book 'Direct Hits Vocabulary) Getting more excersize so that your child might 'just naturally' want to do movement with you? Having more funtime scheduled so you can be more patient during the unfun times of parenting?

I could never hold all this in my head, so I encourage you to do some journaling and list making and start to figure out what your own prioities are.

More soon -
Grinity

All 3 of my sons went through the gifted program, and when the first one tested, the district director asked for a meeting with me because she had never seen such high scores. She wanted to know how I was teaching him. I told her that I taught him to think 'conceptually', to think about what things really are, not just what they're called.

This conceptual thinking is also what I believe leads to faster processing speed. Processing is the conceptualizing stage of reading. It is when you comprehend the material. It is when the words form ideas and when the ideas become assimilated in your mind.

There is a new site that uses this approach to teach reading effectiveness, www.readspeeder.com. It is free and isn't selling anything. The site looks a little low-budget, and may not be the easiest to understand at first, but it is amazingly effective. I think it's the only place that can display text highlighted into real thought-units.

The basic approach of this method is to concentrate primarily on improving comprehension as a MEANS to improve reading speed. In other words it's primarily about learning to process the ideas more efficiently by learning to focus on ideas versus words.

Now it's time to celebrate all the things you are doing to enrich his strenghts! You are doing a great job here - these are exactly the sorts of things I would suggest for a kid with 135 Perceptual Index score. Yippee!

What I particularly like is that you were willing to let him try those difficult LEGO sets even though the age on the box was clearly well beyond his years! Most parents would be stopped by something like that, but you persevered - Go YOU!


My son enjoyed electronics kits also. And a book http://www.dangerousbookforboys.com/
which might give him some woodworking project that might be a sneaky way to add some physical activity to his life. My son built a wheeled cart that he would drag up the hill and then scoot down on with his friend. Not the sort of activity he would usually be interested in, but because he had built it with his dad, he was.

More soon...

I would ask him to say exactly which tasks are taking a long time to complete. If you can, narrow the tasks down to the top three irritations, and then we (you and him and us) can brainstorm possible interventions and observe (like a Scientist!) which ones work. If he can't narrow it down, try getting him a wrist watch with a chronometer and asking him to keep a journal of common activities and how much time they take to accomplish. (Again, like a Scientist) Another general time saver for kids who hate to write is to teach them to keyboard without looking at the letters. For my son, I switched his schools between 4th and 5th grade, and when I brought him to the private school to be evaluated, I said: "You'll just have to trust me, but DO expect him to show you his true mind unless he is in front of a keyboard. If you want him to write an essay, walk him over to the computer and tell him to GO."

Unfortunately, the keyboarding has to get to an effortless automatisity before it can be a help. But, once the effort is make to get mastery, so many doors open. Do you think I would have been willing to write down all of this by hand and mail it to you and wait 3 weeks for a reponse? Not too likely!

So one possible project for this summer is to learn keyboarding. My son felt 'disrespected' by the 'fun' programs like 'SpongeBob' etc, and did better with Mavis Beacon's program. Find something that your son can enjoy, or at least tolerate, give it 15 minutes a day, (or even 10) and expect it to click in all at once. My son was able to type well at age 10, and it was about the only physical task he excelled at. Once he had the basics down, he got fast by playing Runescape, because the players used typing to 'chat' with each other to trade items and pass along tips. Later, after his gradeskip, his typing saved the day, because he could do all that copious volume of work with less effort and in less time than those older, more stamina kids.

My personal rule has been, if I can invest time and effort now to save time and effort 100x in the future, I'll do it!

As far as irritations #2, I think the tutor/mentor and the new school will do the trick.

#3 - Martial Arts. Do individual lessons with an instructor if you can afford it, especially in the beginning, if he can't handle being with the little kids. We did that to try and save my son's pride, but it really helped by keeping him able to work to his level of strengths and challenges. Another way to go is to get an Pediatric Occupational Therapist involved (especially if your insurance covers it) - part of that slow processing may be interfering with sports being fun. I find the whole physical activity think to be like a vicious or virtuous cycle. It isn't fun to use your body unless you are good at using your body, and you can't get good at using your body unless you do use your body. Another approach is the console video games now have physical components. That provides some fun until the strength and coordination show up. Even 'Guitar Hero' can provide somewhat of a workout (make sure he does it standing up!)

Smiles,
Grinity

You bring up such interesting questions. This is so new to me that I am being bindsided by my ignorance of these issues. I read up about the disorder you DS was diagnosed with and yes I agree it a lot about it seem to match up with my DS.So its worth checking out.
How do I go about getting a referral for a Neuro psych ? Do I talk to his Pediatrician? I am hoping the insurance can cover most or atleast part of it. The testing we got done since it was called "gifted" was not covered by insurance. Thanks for your inputs.

So I need to figure out how best to help him manage his tasks and work to the best of his ability at school. The things you did for your DD gives me a perspective of what I might need to do thanks!

I did find the Fastforward program. Its on my list of things to research upon.Thanks. I am so glad to hear that it helped your child.

Hmm so do you think his processing speed improved with age ?
My DS can be absent minded like leaving behind his lunch box etc.He needs constant reminders right now.
It is good to hear about such a huge positive change. Very happy to read that your child is doing so well :-)