Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment FAST processing speed?

from here:

http://www.gifteddevelopment.com/PDF_files/NewWISC.pdf

I hope not. I don't know what my scores would be, but my processing speed is fast (eg my son's DS brain game for math facts can't really keep up with me and I feel like the world moves in slow motion sometimes). But I like to think I'm pretty good at integrating details into a whole.

Does that make sense? Did I misunderstand something?

On a related note, there are disadvantages with fast processing speed, too. They just aren't as obvious. For example, sometimes I may confuse people when I use keyboard shortcuts and everything on the screen changes in a flash without explanation, or I may come across as being impatient or rude when in reality I've just made a decision and started acting on it quickly/too quickly. Doesn't mean I'm always right. It just means that I move quickly.

Anyone else?

Val

Sounds like my DD.

Me too. Since I work as an educator (not at a school), I've learned to move outwardly at different paces, though. I do recall thinking that the people I trained in prior jobs when I was in my 20s were idiots, though, where the problem was more likely that I was moving through everything much too fast for them to catch on.

Grinity and Val,

Sounds like I came to the right place as you both caught the problem with what I had said. This is where the it is not quite as simple as this line comes in.

In my opinion, we are double specialists. So for instance, I consider myself a F-L, forest plus leaf with no idea what a tree looks like. People may be F-F, F-T, T-T, T-L and L-L.

I consider T-Ls to be the best at fact based memory skills.

This is my somewhat less simple version.

My kids scored very high and quite balanced on IQ testing. They are definitely not "just" conventional high achievers, but they do find school type stuff very easy and fly through it. When one was assessed for reading comprehension in K, the reading specialist was a little freaked out that he could answer the questions in the exact language from the passage he'd read once or paraphrase to show he understood it. Multiplication tables were learned in about 5 minutes. Things that depend a great deal on memory like languages, vocabulary, spelling, arithmetic are all really easy for them.

I don't think the tree/leaf/forest concept works for these kids. It's not that they have good memory and therefore necessarily have poor creativity or abstraction. Some kids really are just good at creativity, abstraction, and detail. They do big picture well and small picture well. They don't only know arithmetic because math facts are easy, rather because that took no effort, they can move on to learning more abstract concepts really early. And since those are easy and they arej really fast, then they learn harder stuff faster too . . . . . .

I'm sure that kids come in all flavors of profiles on IQ testing. There are lots of scores posted here with isolated highs in one subtest, with high GAI but lower PSI/WMI, and with one lower score and three higher ones, etc. There are kids with high scores across the board as well.

I don't think that anyone was meaning to imply that kids with balanced profiles who are high in VCI and PRI as well as WMI and PSI are not gifted but simply high achievers. I've just, personally, seen some kids who are not high on VCI or PRI, but are on the other two and who do seem to lack that depth of thought or abstract thinking ability yet they do achieve highly b/c they memorize well and process fast. They can, thus, spit back the information they just read, for instance, but if you ask them to analyze it they don't go far.

I see that Cricket, but wanted to point out that it's not an either fast or deep situation all the time.

I do think that fast processors often seem smarter than they really are because of what you said -- there doesn't have to be depth to back up the speed.

Yeah, I apologize if I seemed like I was saying that kids with high scores in these areas couldn't be gifted--that's not what I meant at all. I was just wondering who the kids were, you know? I mean, maybe PG kids tend to be really high in all areas and don't have the more typical lower WMI/PRI. Or maybe kids with Aspie tendencies often score high on WMI (isn't memory often very strong in Aspies?). Or...


I would be so curious as to how common this is and also as to how well kids with this profile (or say, a slightly different one with high-normal VCI and PRI but not gifted) do long-term. Maybe they don't have the abstract thinking, but to what degree is that a serious problem in today's educational system? Just interesting to ponder. This is not my DD's profile since her verbal and quantitative intelligence were genuinely high (but MG level), but I do wonder if the superior memory and speed I believe she possesses (for instance, she can easily parrot back 8+ digits backwards) give her an academic advantage not necessarily in line with her numerical IQ. In other words...in other words...I don't know. We know that IQ predicts academic achievement to some extent, but maybe in some ways WMI and PSI predict *success within the limited traditional academic lockstep box* in a way that has not yet been quantified. In fact, I guess I wonder...what are these measures "for"? If they do not acuurately ID giftedness, do they accurately ID deficits? What do they tell us?

(Again, I know I am ignorant about all this.)

Oh, I don't think creativity is the sole domain of the gifted at all. Nor do I think all gifted people are creative.

And yeah, i think many of the test designers have said that the tests are not intended to distinguish very well once you get to the end of the bell curve.

I'm not wedded to the idea that these measures tell us anything major. Maybe they're actually kind of useless. But if so, like I say, why are they even on the test? It's just interesting to me.