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Low processing speed


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These are the WISC-IV scores for one of my children (please don't quote)

 

VCI  SS  114     Percentile 82

PRI  SS  110     Percentile 75

WMI SS  123     Percentile 94

PSI   SS  80      Percentile 9

 

 

subscores:

 

VCI

Vocabulary  17

Similarities  12

Comprehension 9

 

PRI

Picture completion 7

Picture concepts 15

Matrix Reasoning 13

 

WMI

Digit Span 15

Letter-Number Sequencing 13

Mean 10SD_+/-3   (don't know what this is?)

 

PSI  

Coding  7

Symbol Search 6

 

 

What stands out here is the huge difference between processing speed and everything else, though I find it interesting that the subscores of the VCI and PRI are either quite high or quite low--no middle ground.

 

Does anyone have insight into ways I can best use this information? How do you compensate for low processing speed?

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Adding scores for a second child, this one obviously has more areas of challenge (please don't quote):

 

VCI  SS  100     Percentile 50

PRI  SS  84     Percentile 14

WMI SS  94     Percentile 34

PSI   SS  91      Percentile 27

 

 

subscores:

 

VCI

Vocabulary  17

Similarities  10

Comprehension 4

 

PRI

Picture completion 5

Picture concepts 6

Matrix Reasoning 11

 

WMI

Digit Span 9

Letter-Number Sequencing 9

 

 

PSI  

Coding  8

Symbol Search 9

 

Both had low subscores for comprehension.

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Low processing speed is a pain in the...oh, wait, did I just say that? Lol. My kiddo is in the single digit percentiles as well. You will need to work on any skill in most any area to bring it to automaticity so that that processing isn't slowing them down. Easier said than done--our OT thinks our son is one of those "D. All of the above" kids, meaning that his processing is slow because many other things are running slowly simultaneously, such as auditory processing problems, problems with sequencing (motor movements, thoughts, everything), etc. You really want to work on the individual areas in fun ways, but you probably want to take the processing out of school and chore tasks as much as possible until they are ready to take on a little more. We cannot give my son multi-step directions, for instance. He can do okay with a list, but each step has to be explicit, and he requires intense follow-up, walking with him to be sure he is on task. With handwriting, he has learned cursive, but he learned letters in order of how they are similar to motor plan, then he learned combinations of letters, such as each consonant with each vowel or phonetic blends, then he learned how to write words, etc. It was an extremely intensive process because automaticity is so difficult for him. The good news is that once he worked, worked, worked, the writing just started flowing out of him. He still writes somewhat slowly, BUT, he went from struggling to write short letter combinations to suddenly being able to write everything once stuff clicked. Play speed games where they compete against themselves. You might need to do some physical activity or something to kind of wake up the brain and prime the pump before they work. My son does Count Battle, Symmetrain, or some other game of speed before work some days. Doing things fairly predictably to automate the sequence also relieves the processing backlog to some extent.

 

The Bright Not Broken radio show on the Coffee Klatch network has a two-part interview with a woman who wrote a book about slow processing. It's a good interview. You can find the archive online, or you can search The Coffee Klatch network's itunes store for the free podcast. It's been a while--you'll have to scroll through a list of broadcasts.

 

Did you get a GAI for either set of scores (they throw out the processing and working memory to mitigate the effect of very low processing). The first set of scores seems 2e to me--more high scores than low ones, but low scores mixed in (could even be fatigue for the low scores if there weren't many breaks). The second set, if the vocabulary score is more accurate than the others, would make me wonder if there is a hearing issue or problem processing directions. If this child is not taking information in correctly, then that can make the whole test a bit off. Tester observations help a lot. Our tester, for instance, noticed that my son's lower scores were in areas when he had to listen for directions. In other areas where he could literally see what to do, he did better (the auditory processing is probably responsible for this). Another possibility is that the high vocabulary score is the outlier (vocab is one area of the test that can be influenced by environment, exposure, etc.). I don't know if a hyperlexic child would score like that on the WISC (high vocabulary, but scores in other areas not as high).

 

Do you know what areas are difficult for your kids with comprehension? Can they tell a story back to you in the right order? Do you read and ask them questions? Do they get facts but not know how to make connections or draw inferences? 

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