Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Article on processing speed - sound right?

Interesting article -- what do you all know about this/make of this?
http://www.familylight.com/link3/3.04/S_Proc/fam_lt.htm

"In my experience, students with a 15 point or greater discrepancy (one standard deviation for the statisticians among us) between their Verbal Comprehension Index (VCI) and Processing Speed Index (PSI) on a Wechsler IQ test (WISC-IV or WAIS-IV) are at risk for difficulties in this area, possibly needing the kind of accommodations and support that Merridee Michelsen recommends in her article on slow processing. If the discrepancy is 3o points or more (two standard deviations) then the these accommodations are very important and parents should not accept less."

The Merridee Michelsen article is here:
http://www.familylight.com/link3/3.04/S_Proc/M_M.htm

My DS8 has a ceilinged (extended testing not offered) VCI of 150, but a processing speed of 97. He's a 2e kiddo with some sensory issues as well, and already shows some of the lack of interest in school that is mentioned in the article. Just wondering if the initial article rings true (or if the author is known here). Thankfully he does not have some of the issues mentioned with processing what he reads (and he reads incredibly quickly), and his IEP includes many of the accommodations listed. Just really wondering if this is right, that his slow processing speed is seriously going to impact the rest of it his work, and if that isn't part of what we're attributing to sensory processing issues (or if indeed they are all one and the same!).

Interesting.... just got dd's scores back and her VCI was 148 but processing speed was only 112, so more than 2 standard deviations...and I was not surprised processing speed was lower on her as she can be so slow sometimes I get frustrated. DD reads very quickly too, she seriously flies through books with great comprehension. I would love to know what others think. I often have thought she has ADHD tendencies but it doesn't fit totally, now I wonder if it is the discrepancy I am seeing?

Very interesting articles, thank you.

If a low PSI doesn't affect reading, how does it affect a child? My son received a low PSI (although the tester made several mistakes, I'm not sure how much the mistakes would have affected this area), but I can't see in any way anything slow about him. He can speed read and learns everything unbelievably quickly.

DD's processing speed relative slowness is seen I think, by her ability to get out/show what she knows...if that makes sense. I think there is so much going on in her brain that the information is there but has to fight it's way through the distracting thoughts to get out and on paper or said.

Squishys the tricky thing about low processing speed scores is that they aren't always accurate. Sometimes a low score reflects perfectionism more than actually being slow, or in my DDs case a personality that refuses to do boring repetitive tasks. Which is why, when you see a low processing score you should be asking whehter it matches the child and often also do other tests that will show whether there is a clear pattern or not.

I don't think of my DD as being fast at all, in fact she drives me up the wall with how slowly she likes to move through life. But I am sure that in part she does that just to annoy me and I am equally sure that her low processing score was not accurate. Yes a correct score for her would likely lower than her VCI, but not two SDs.

If you see a child with a low processing speed score that really does reflect a problem, there is more than one problem that can lead to low processing speed and what the problem is exactly might lead to different signs. The processing speed tests on the WISC are very visual/motor based. The child might think/work slowly, they might have a visual problem, a motor problem, a visual motor problem or some combination there of... a child with only a motor problem will have different every day struggles than a child with only a visual problem, and different again than a child with more of a combination problem.

My son certainly is a perfectionist. I know he also wasn't told that the particular tests were timed; but I am not sure as to whether they're meant to know. The scores definitely do not match.

My DD has 56 points between her VCI (99th) and PSI (7th) and 51 between VCI and WMI (13th). Neuropsych diagnosed ADHD-Inattentive which we disagree with. We think he was purely measuring her shutting down from anxiety triggered by a test that tapped into her visual perception, fine motor, processing speed and working memory weaknesses. She thinks very fast when in a creative task but anything having to do with motor, reading, writing, etc is laboriously slow. Lots of issues with anxiety - it's interesting to see in these articles that anxiety slows down processing speed. I guess that makes sense. Outside of school she is as happy go lucky as can be. School is tough...