Slow processing - what does it mean ?

[Ummto4]

How do you define slow processing ?

 

Is it working too slowly ?

Slow to understand ?

 

Pls describe (with examples). Thanks.

[RamonaQ]

Needs to put finger on algebra problem to copy each term, but still pauses and seems to space out.

 

As child begins to solve algebra problem, and looks like he is booking along, he pauses and stares into space, then picks up and moves along. There doesn't always seem to be a rhyme or reason for pauses (ie-thinking about computation) sometime he just pauses midstream.

 

Therefore, in his case, math takes twice as long....Nudging, timers, nothing changes the fact...it just takes him longer.

 

When reading outloud, sounds a bit glitchy.

 

it is NOT slow to understand. He understands quickly, deeply, and often times eerily deep (which I have always attributed to his IQ)

[dancingmama]

Needs to put finger on algebra problem to copy each term, but still pauses and seems to space out.

 

As child begins to solve algebra problem, and looks like he is booking along, he pauses and stares into space, then picks up and moves along. There doesn't always seem to be a rhyme or reason for pauses (ie-thinking about computation) sometime he just pauses midstream.

 

Therefore, in his case, math takes twice as long....Nudging, timers, nothing changes the fact...it just takes him longer.

 

When reading outloud, sounds a bit glitchy.

 

it is NOT slow to understand. He understands quickly, deeply, and often times eerily deep (which I have always attributed to his IQ)

 

 

This. Exactly what my son does. Also, spends time "talking over" or "thinking over" experiences that happened earlier in the day.

[RamonaQ]

This. Exactly what my son does. Also, spends time "talking over" or "thinking over" experiences that happened earlier in the day.

 

YES!!!! There are whole monologues in the shower. It is quite disarming until I realize he is just talking to himself. I never equated it to processing speed...I just thought he was a shower thespian. :smilielol5:

[wapiti]

AFAIK, slow processing is specifically defined by percentile score in certain IQ-test subtests that attempt to measure processing speed. To quote one report regarding the WISC subtests, "Processing speed is an indication of the rapidity with which one can mentally process simple or routine information without making errors. Symbol Search taps visual scanning and tracking while Coding requires more motoric output. Within the academic environment Coding tends to be related to the ability to rapidly take notes, the ability to take timed tests, and the ability to complete assignments within imposed time constraints."

 

To further complicate the question, let's look at my ds9, whose coding subtest score was in the single-digit percentiles. He is slow at the physical act of writing. He is also slow at processing auditory information, but is that really "slow processing speed" or his language-processing glitch, which showed up in other testing as issues with auditory reasoning and auditory comprehension? I believe that, technically, it's the latter.

 

In spite of his slow processing speed with motor tasks (writing anything at all), his ability to process visual and/or mathematical information is sometimes lightning-quick. (He leans heavily visual-spatial, and often solves complex problems all-at-once, which is leading to resistance in properly writing out equations.)

 

I would be wary of defining it by symptoms because different causes may have similar downstream effects. I can't imagine what thinking over earlier experiences would have to do with processing speed the way that I understand it.

Edited November 6, 2012 by wapiti

[RamonaQ]

AFAIK, slow processing is specifically defined by percentile score in certain IQ-test subtests that attempt to measure processing speed. To quote one report regarding the WISC subtests, "Processing speed is an indication of the rapidity with which one can mentally process simple or routine information without making errors. Symbol Search taps visual scanning and tracking while Coding requires more motoric output. Within the academic environment Coding tends to be related to the ability to rapidly take notes, the ability to take timed tests, and the ability to complete assignments within imposed time constraints."

 

To further complicate the question, let's look at my ds9, whose coding subtest score was in the single-digit percentiles. He is slow at the physical act of writing. He is also slow at processing auditory information, but is that really "slow processing speed" or his language-processing glitch, which showed up in other testing as issues with auditory reasoning and auditory comprehension? I believe that, technically, it's the latter.

 

In spite of his slow processing speed with motor tasks (writing anything at all), his ability to process visual and/or mathematical information is sometimes lightning-quick. (He leans heavily visual-spatial, and often solves complex problems all-at-once, which is leading to resistance in properly writing out equations.)

 

I would be wary of defining it by symptoms because different causes may have similar downstream effects. I can't imagine what thinking over earlier experiences would have to do with processing speed the way that I understand it.

 

Such good points. In the end, I also agree that processing speed is kind of a bucket category and this test is likely influenced by other factors.

 

I think that processing of past experiences is likely exactly that...processing of past experiences through verbal rehearsal.

[PeterPan]

Well in our house it's the steam that comes out her ears when she tries to do something that requires too much processing (latin). It's me having to bite my tongue an extra 3 seconds when I wait for a reply, because her reply REALLY CAN'T come that fast.

 

Fading out is attention. The low processing speed and attention can go together, yes. If they're fading out in order to think (or diverting their eyes to eliminate distractions to their limited working memory while they think with their low processing speed, haha), then you're seeing how they work together. But what I described above is how low processing speed looks when she's TRYING to focus and attend and it just bogs down and takes longer.

 

It shows up as "carriage whit" (where they know the answer as they leave the party, a line from Scarlet Pimpernel). And it plays out with them getting much more tired than NT doing the same amount of work. In our house, it means if she does something really hard that takes a lot of mental work, it's so draining that she is too wiped out to do anything else. We do math LAST in our day now, which helps immensely. It means if I work her too hard mentally one day, she won't be able to do school the next day. It causes the total vegetation weeks where they can't do anything more and just need to do something ELSE because they've been going so hard.

 

For us, it resulted in the np saying to be brave and NOT work her at that limit, because she needs to have *energy* left for her creative stuff. Today she got her core work done in 2 hours. That's the dream and the vision. It also means I teach her difficult subjects with layers of ease rather than one whomping exposure of hard. If it's HARD, she's thinks hard to reach there and gets worn out.

 

On a side note, if you read the stuff about brain MRIs and scans and stuff in Dyslexic Advantage, they talk about the mini-columns of the brain. So you have some kids with closely spaced columns where the info just goes ZING! and connects. Then you have our kids, with widely-spaced mini-columns where the info takes circuitous routes, goes all around, bumps around making lots of other connections. Takes longer to get there, longer to process, longer to retrieve, but when they do it the connections are RICHER and pulling together more facets of knowledge. So that's how I think of her. I just bite my tongue and let it take it's time (or try). There's clearly something structural, and it has a good side and a bad side. And it has realities and responsibilities. It is particularly hard for me (just saying my own foibles) to assess when I'm hitting that amount right and when I'm not. It's just one of those things we work on. We worked so hard for 9-10 weeks, we were really tired. So we just vegged the last couple weeks and cleaned and did other things. Now she's back to working at her stuff. We dropped one thing, trying to make sure our total brain drain is consistently doable. So just play with it and find your balance.

[TippyCanoe]

nm

[Mukmuk]

There are processing speed difficulties caused by different things: word retrieval issues, working memory limitations, attention deficits, etc.

 

However, some people are just slow thinkers, and this is NOT a bad thing. We need them to counterbalance those who are too quick off the mark (I count myself in this category).

 

As dd 16 has gotten older and more able to reflect on the workings of her own mind, she tells me that when I get impatient and think she MUST have an answer by now!!!!, what is really going on is that she is patiently going through whether or not there are exceptions to whatever she's pondering, whether there are parallels historically or thematically, whether any other explanation might also fit the fact, etc. In other words, she massively overthinks (from the point of view of those who value speed in answering, as I tend to do too much).

 

Many kids with visual-spatial tendencies and right-brained thinkers tend to have this type of associative network in their brains that makes response times even for simple retrieval just that little bit longer than neurotypicals. With questions in which they have no interest, or equally in which they are deeply interested and so think through deeply before responding, their processing time slows down further. They also can get lost along the way. When dd was younger she could take two steps to her dresser drawer to look for socks and get sidetracked along the way, appearing half an hour later having long forgotten about the socks. This happened ALL DAY LONG. She was busy thinking, but in an associative rather than linear, outcome-focused manner. It's gotten quite a bit better as she's gotten older, but I find I kind of miss how it used to be. This type of wandery thinking can get labeled as slow processing or attention deficit, but after watching sixteen years of it, I think it's simply not as linear and output-oriented as the tests used to judge processing speed.

 

My dd and dh are both this type of slow, interconnective, deliberate thinkers. I've grown to think of myself as fairly careless in comparison, as I don't consider nearly all the aspects of a given topic/issue/fact as they do. Each type of thinking has benefits and downsides. But not all slower processors are necessarily LD.

 

So many good points here. DS' processing speed as measured in the WISC was at the 75th percentile, his next worst score after WM. The NP was convinced that DS was not a slow thinker, but because that test segment is highly visual, DS would lose his place just lifting up his head. So it's the *output* that gets affected. Another example- last yr, DS would put up his hand and reply for the previous question at a debate camp. When his sound discrimination abilities improved this year, it didn't happen again. What looks like slow processing is actually an input block.

 

What I see in daily life is a lightning quick thinker that doesnt always appear this way. For eg, I've tried explaining concepts to him and just when I've begun, he's already seen flaws ahead or hes taken a turn and his eyes start swimming because he's thinking of ways to work around it. I can't shake him out of his thought process. I've gotten upset before because it looks like he's ignoring me. But the end result, when he starts discussing, is mind blowing. His associations are very wide. I'm retraining myself to be more patient, to listen and follow his thoughts (rather than expect him to follow my mine). Thanks, Doodler, for reminding that I will miss this phase one day :).

[J-rap]

I would never have understood this before, but since my husband's stroke, he now has slower processing speed and I've done a lot of research into it. An analogy would be going from your house to the corner store. Most people would simply go down the block to the store, the shortest and most direct route. Someone with slower processing speed might cross the street, go around the block, maybe go around another block, and then eventually loop back to the store. So he still gets there, it just takes him longer.

 

This is the case with my husband. The most direct brain paths have been blocked, so other, longer routes take over. I'm not sure about the physical explanations for this with a child who was born this way, but this is how it is with someone who has experienced a stroke or brain damage.

[Tiramisu]

Well in our house it's the steam that comes out her ears when she tries to do something that requires too much processing (latin). It's me having to bite my tongue an extra 3 seconds when I wait for a reply, because her reply REALLY CAN'T come that fast.

 

Fading out is attention. The low processing speed and attention can go together, yes. If they're fading out in order to think (or diverting their eyes to eliminate distractions to their limited working memory while they think with their low processing speed, haha), then you're seeing how they work together. But what I described above is how low processing speed looks when she's TRYING to focus and attend and it just bogs down and takes longer.

 

It shows up as "carriage whit" (where they know the answer as they leave the party, a line from Scarlet Pimpernel). And it plays out with them getting much more tired than NT doing the same amount of work. In our house, it means if she does something really hard that takes a lot of mental work, it's so draining that she is too wiped out to do anything else. We do math LAST in our day now, which helps immensely. It means if I work her too hard mentally one day, she won't be able to do school the next day. It causes the total vegetation weeks where they can't do anything more and just need to do something ELSE because they've been going so hard.

 

For us, it resulted in the np saying to be brave and NOT work her at that limit, because she needs to have *energy* left for her creative stuff. Today she got her core work done in 2 hours. That's the dream and the vision. It also means I teach her difficult subjects with layers of ease rather than one whomping exposure of hard. If it's HARD, she's thinks hard to reach there and gets worn out.

 

On a side note, if you read the stuff about brain MRIs and scans and stuff in Dyslexic Advantage, they talk about the mini-columns of the brain. So you have some kids with closely spaced columns where the info just goes ZING! and connects. Then you have our kids, with widely-spaced mini-columns where the info takes circuitous routes, goes all around, bumps around making lots of other connections. Takes longer to get there, longer to process, longer to retrieve, but when they do it the connections are RICHER and pulling together more facets of knowledge. So that's how I think of her. I just bite my tongue and let it take it's time (or try). There's clearly something structural, and it has a good side and a bad side. And it has realities and responsibilities. It is particularly hard for me (just saying my own foibles) to assess when I'm hitting that amount right and when I'm not. It's just one of those things we work on. We worked so hard for 9-10 weeks, we were really tired. So we just vegged the last couple weeks and cleaned and did other things. Now she's back to working at her stuff. We dropped one thing, trying to make sure our total brain drain is consistently doable. So just play with it and find your balance.

 

Thanks, OhE. Your observations really reflect our experiences as well with one who has been shown to have technically average processing speed, but much lower than the reasoning scores.

[PeterPan]

BTW, that's why I'm so hot on the eval issue. I talked about those symptoms for YEARS here on the boards, and NO ONE pulled me aside and mentioned there was a name for it, a cause, an explanation. Frankly, I think they just assumed she was STUPID. She's not stupid or incapable. She just has this huge gap between processing speed and IQ. She gets to a very bright place with everything she does, but it takes more effort. It's why it's so important to get as much as possible on auto (math facts, etc.), so they're not draining her even more. It's why when she's doing hard math and really processing hard and glitches up over something simple like 8X4 I hand her a calculator.

 

Anyways, I wish someone else had told me when I was saying these things and it was so obvious, and I try to return the favor. Maybe people don't feel that way, but that's how I feel. I wish someone had told me here on the boards, cuz I said so much that was OBVIOUS in hindsite.

[Tiramisu]

BTW, that's why I'm so hot on the eval issue. I talked about those symptoms for YEARS here on the boards, and NO ONE pulled me aside and mentioned there was a name for it, a cause, an explanation. Frankly, I think they just assumed she was STUPID. She's not stupid or incapable. She just has this huge gap between processing speed and IQ. She gets to a very bright place with everything she does, but it takes more effort. It's why it's so important to get as much as possible on auto (math facts, etc.), so they're not draining her even more. It's why when she's doing hard math and really processing hard and glitches up over something simple like 8X4 I hand her a calculator.

 

Anyways, I wish someone else had told me when I was saying these things and it was so obvious, and I try to return the favor. Maybe people don't feel that way, but that's how I feel. I wish someone had told me here on the boards, cuz I said so much that was OBVIOUS in hindsite.

 

Yes, get the word out!

 

I'll also add, if our neurologist is right, the effort of dealing with a processing glitch can be so stressful that it can affect one's health. Not that we should become discouraged, but we should take it into account as we make educational decisions to create a healthy, balanced lifestyle for our kids, and ourselves.

[MomatHWTK]

I describe it as, great hard drive but not enough RAM.

[PeterPan]

I describe it as, great hard drive but not enough RAM.

 

RAM is working memory. Processing speed is Windows 8 with a 286 processor.