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Help me figure out what's going on and how to help (low processing speed)


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So, dd12 has been tested twice by two different public schools, and hasn't qualified either time for services. She struggles w/reading, spelling & language in general; she has very weak phonemic awareness/skills; low processing speed (14-16%); low working memory (14-16%). The area I'm mulling over/asking about today is the processing speed.

She takes a long time to "jump start" her brain. The more often a task is repeated, the quicker it gets, which makes sense. But sometimes, if she's just "not feeling it" it can take sooooo long. Specifically, it's oral lessons, me teaching/asking questions. I say "get out your map of Italy and tell me what mountain range is on the Switzerland border." (And we've already been going for 5 minutes on a few other questions.) She is totally blank, as if I'm speaking Arabic.

5 minutes later after we walk thru "What country are we studying? Find Italy. Now find Switzerland. What's a mountain range look like? Can you find the name?" Meanwhile, her sister found is totally bored because she knew the answer right after I asked.

Or maybe it's an attention thing. Her mind is definitely wandering, or who knows what it's doing, most of the time when I am talking or reading aloud. She does a lot better if she's reading it herself. But, the geography isn't set up that way.

And, once her mind gets "on track" she's fine. The geography scenario above did not happen again that day. It's really just at the beginning of something. We do geography once a week, and at the end of the country unit, she'll know a lot of what we covered, so eventually it does stick. It just takes a few weeks.

Help? anyone? 

 

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1 hour ago, Jenn in CA said:

So, dd12 has been tested twice by two different public schools, and hasn't qualified either time for services. She struggles w/reading, spelling & language in general; she has very weak phonemic awareness/skills; low processing speed (14-16%); low working memory (14-16%). The area I'm mulling over/asking about today is the processing speed.

She takes a long time to "jump start" her brain. The more often a task is repeated, the quicker it gets, which makes sense. But sometimes, if she's just "not feeling it" it can take sooooo long. Specifically, it's oral lessons, me teaching/asking questions. I say "get out your map of Italy and tell me what mountain range is on the Switzerland border." (And we've already been going for 5 minutes on a few other questions.) She is totally blank, as if I'm speaking Arabic.

5 minutes later after we walk thru "What country are we studying? Find Italy. Now find Switzerland. What's a mountain range look like? Can you find the name?" Meanwhile, her sister found is totally bored because she knew the answer right after I asked.

Or maybe it's an attention thing. Her mind is definitely wandering, or who knows what it's doing, most of the time when I am talking or reading aloud. She does a lot better if she's reading it herself. But, the geography isn't set up that way.

And, once her mind gets "on track" she's fine. The geography scenario above did not happen again that day. It's really just at the beginning of something. We do geography once a week, and at the end of the country unit, she'll know a lot of what we covered, so eventually it does stick. It just takes a few weeks.

Help? anyone? 

 

That may be too many instructions/steps of things to do at a time for her, once she sees the pattern of them she can do them all together.

I would break up your instructions more.  

1. Get out your map of Italy.  Repeat until maps are out.  Is there a separate map of each country?  If so, next map needed is another instruction.

2. If it's a map of Europe, say, find Switzerland.  

Keep going like this with one instruction step at a time for the first few times you do something, then you can do multi-step once you've combined the steps a few times.

My guess would be that she can't hold all the steps/instructions in her working memory and is lost because you have too many steps/instructions, not that she's not paying attention.

As stated, your instructions to her require her to remember and hold in her memory 4 to 5 things.  Once you've been doing the same thing every day, it is grouped as a pattern and is 1 to 2 things to remember.

Edited by ElizabethB
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Have you heard of priming?

It can mean extra pre-teaching.

Or, it can be an extra little introduction with some reminder information, talking about the topic, showing pictures of the topic, before questions.  
 

It’s a strategy you can google and there are different ideas for how to do it.  
 

It comes from “priming the pump.”  

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You could show her a little video about the country or mountains?  You could have an easy children’s book and have her read over a page about Sweden or mountains?  
 

It would be easier to do it orally but if you know she doesn’t do as well listening, you probably do want a picture or video, or something written, I guess?  
 

I think it is good to do oral questions/answers, though, it is good practice.  But if she does better with written directions maybe it could be less of the time, or it could be moved to the end more.  
 

You might try to use an easier map too, if that might make a difference.  Or go over the same map more than is called for.  Or review the exact same information more than with your other child.  

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Offering a word bank can help also if you wanted to do that.  Or go over vocabulary words prior to the lesson.  Or have a cheat sheet that she can refer to that would have countries of Europe, or geographic features, or other lists like this that might be helpful and have some answers written in an organized way, to help jog her memory and connect “oh yeah, countries,” or “oh yeah, geographic features.”  
 

And if that helped — having her read over the lists before you started would be geography, could be a way of priming.  It would be an example.  

Edited by Lecka
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https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.understood.org/en/school-learning/partnering-with-childs-school/instructional-strategies/classroom-accommodations-for-slow-processing-speed
 

This does mention waiting longer for an answer..... you will have to know if she is spacing out or if she is slowly thinking and coming up with an answer.... but I have seen recommendations to wait 30+ seconds.  

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It is pretty expected that she would get faster with answering as she gets more practice, but start out pretty slow.

The problem is if she is really not focused on thinking of the answer, and then that is wasting time.

I have guidance to go ahead and provide the answer, and have him repeat it, if my son seems just to be spacy.  But if he’s actually thinking then I am cutting him off and preventing him from having an opportunity for independent recall.  It is a bit of a judgment call sometimes and I think people just do the best they can, or see if the child can say if they are thinking of the answer, or let them ask or say they don’t know, if they know they don’t know.  

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Keep in mind too — with more kids she would have more chances to hear what other kids said and see them find answers.  It’s fine to do that more when you are 1:1 or in a small group — she can have more hints.  It can be part of the learning process.  

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Thank you everyone. Yes, breaking it down definitely helps. I guess today, this specific incident, I had already done all those things, the map was already out, etc... and she'd even answered a question already... it must have been an easy one that still didn't "prime the pump." But in general, those suggestions do help. It is frustrating when i am doing all I can to break down the instructions and she's still not with me. Perhaps today was glitchy.

Waiting longer for an answer helps if she hasn't already said "What? Huh?" But at that point she is definitely lost and can't repeat what I just said. (I've noticed that if she's upstairs and I call her name, there is regularly a 1-3 sec delay before she answers, whereas the other kids answer pretty much instantly. That seems to me to be the slow processing speed. Anyone else's kid do this?)

Would you guys say, then, this is not an attention thing? To me, attention issues mean mid-way through working, the student has lost focus and can't get it back. That doesn't seem to happen. It's mainly getting the attention in the first place. And it is the morning, maybe it is a protein thing.

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1 minute ago, Lecka said:

Keep in mind too — with more kids she would have more chances to hear what other kids said and see them find answers.  It’s fine to do that more when you are 1:1 or in a small group — she can have more hints.  It can be part of the learning process.  

That is a good point! 

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Seeing your previous response — yes this is pretty par for the course.  My son is in a self-contained autism classroom.  These are the kinds of teaching strategies.  “Re-directs” being needed is always highlighted in his IEP.

It sounds like she is learning a lot!  It sounds like you are doing a good job.  
 

It would be pretty expected for her to take much longer and need much more repetition than someone with average processing speed.  
 

But learning in the end is the important thing 😉
 

And kids do just have off days sometimes.  If it’s a pattern then there’s things to try.  But if things are working most days, then off days do happen.  

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I think it is still attention.  “Gaining attention” is something I hear.  It is more like — the transition to the new topic, than maintaining focus on a topic. 
 

Edit:  for “gaining attention” I do see suggested, introduce with a visual or video, it can be a good way to gain attention and then transition into something requiring more thinking.  Like — if she transitioned with a book on the topic, you could give her a book to look at the pictures, and then see if that helped her get into thinking.  

Edited by Lecka
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Anything where she is not tuning you out is a huge success.  It is a big problem.  She sounds like she is trying hard with you.  
 

It is really hard because kids quit trying if there is always an answer before they think of it.  But they can also be thinking about anything or have forgotten the question.

Its really good she will say “what” or “huh” because — it shows she is aware and knows she needs a hint or the question repeated.  
 

You might be able to ask her or have a signal if she needs more time to think.  Those are things people do also.  
 

I do a lot of, starting a sentence for him to finish. It seems to jumpstart him a lot.

He really is doing better lately but these are things I still do. 

He does not officially have slow processing speed but he has some low scores for auditory processing.  

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14 minutes ago, Lecka said:

Seeing your previous response — yes this is pretty par for the course.  My son is in a self-contained autism classroom.  These are the kinds of teaching strategies.  “Re-directs” being needed is always highlighted in his IEP.

It sounds like she is learning a lot!  It sounds like you are doing a good job.  
 

It would be pretty expected for her to take much longer and need much more repetition than someone with average processing speed.  
 

But learning in the end is the important thing 😉
 

And kids do just have off days sometimes.  If it’s a pattern then there’s things to try.  But if things are working most days, then off days do happen.  

Thank you Lecka. This is encouraging!

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You can try things like having a signal of tapping on the table?  To get her attention if she is off-task, but not interrupt her if she is thinking.  I see that recommended. 

Another thing is — if you do prompts, you can use non-verbal prompts.  So you could have a paper you showed instead of saying something.  This is supposed to be less disruptive sometimes.  

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She's 12. Puberty, brain fog, low processing speed, needing more food and sleep (like Rosie said). 

So are you changing what you're doing? How are you modifying your instruction to make it go better? Of course the school doesn't give a rip. In a class it wouldn't show as much, because she wouldn't be on the spot. In college, she'll find herself avoiding classes with heavy language demands, things that put her on the spot with discussions or that require a lot of processing speed. It's not your imagination that it's an issue, but it's *more* of an issue in your homeschooling than it would be at school, hence no need to identify on their part.

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Well also in public school, depending on how they do it, a lot of extra help and special classes are not done with an IEP.  My son’s is, but there are levels of classes where there is no need for an IEP, students can be placed in them based on how they are doing at school.  If she doesn’t qualify for an IEP there are still a lot of things like that.  A lot of pull-out does not need an IEP, as well, they just do it.  
 

Just as an example — my older son was in reading pull-out when he was younger, with the reading specialist, and it was nothing with an IEP.  There is an extra help math class at his school now, and kids enroll in it based on prior enrollment or teacher recommendation.  There are all kinds of things like that.  
 

It’s not that there’s either an IEP or else everything is totally smooth.  A lot more is in the middle.  

Edited by Lecka
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3 hours ago, Jenn in CA said:

So, dd12 has been tested twice by two different public schools, and hasn't qualified either time for services. She struggles w/reading, spelling & language in general; she has very weak phonemic awareness/skills; low processing speed (14-16%); low working memory (14-16%). The area I'm mulling over/asking about today is the processing speed.

She takes a long time to "jump start" her brain. The more often a task is repeated, the quicker it gets, which makes sense. But sometimes, if she's just "not feeling it" it can take sooooo long. Specifically, it's oral lessons, me teaching/asking questions. I say "get out your map of Italy and tell me what mountain range is on the Switzerland border." (And we've already been going for 5 minutes on a few other questions.) She is totally blank, as if I'm speaking Arabic.

5 minutes later after we walk thru "What country are we studying? Find Italy. Now find Switzerland. What's a mountain range look like? Can you find the name?" Meanwhile, her sister found is totally bored because she knew the answer right after I asked.

Or maybe it's an attention thing. Her mind is definitely wandering, or who knows what it's doing, most of the time when I am talking or reading aloud. She does a lot better if she's reading it herself. But, the geography isn't set up that way.

And, once her mind gets "on track" she's fine. The geography scenario above did not happen again that day. It's really just at the beginning of something. We do geography once a week, and at the end of the country unit, she'll know a lot of what we covered, so eventually it does stick. It just takes a few weeks.

Help? anyone? 

 

 

Is it meaningful to her at all? Does she have any sense of what the map is representing irl? 

Maybe you are essentially “speaking Arabic.” 

I’d step way back,  maybe,  to making sure she has a sense of how a map relates to your local area. Like, “here are hills on the map, here are the hills in real life”...

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Ok, so if you know she isn't an auditory learner, why are you using this geography course with her? Is there something else you could use that would work better for her? I'm not a great auditory person, and my daughter definitely is not. She does that double blink "huh" thing a lot. I have to say one bit, ask a question, say another, etc. Or say it three different ways at one time, etc. She does SO much better if we use a video, visual, etc. 

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4 hours ago, Ktgrok said:

Ok, so if you know she isn't an auditory learner, why are you using this geography course with her? Is there something else you could use that would work better for her? I'm not a great auditory person, and my daughter definitely is not. She does that double blink "huh" thing a lot. I have to say one bit, ask a question, say another, etc. Or say it three different ways at one time, etc. She does SO much better if we use a video, visual, etc. 

 

Fair question. I'm using it because it's the best one I've found and she does get a lot out of it in the end, just that it's frustrating at times. I have printed the map questions in large font (modified my lesson and took out the answers) but we haven't gotten into a good flow of using it, and it also has its own little confusing visual things. 

Overall she is getting the idea of maps. At first (1-2 yrs ago) she definitely did not. But over time, she's gotten the idea of how they relate to the physical world.

She's a pretty good reader, but she definitely could not read and follow the instructions of this material, or anything of this quality, on her own. It is a bummer to be neither an auditory nor a visual learner. 😞 She is good w/ piano, dance and sports where she can copy someone's movements almost exactly after watching once or twice, whereas I need to have it shown to me (and explained w/words) over and over! So we're opposites. It helps me to remember this.

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6 hours ago, Jenn in CA said:

 

Fair question. I'm using it because it's the best one I've found and she does get a lot out of it in the end, just that it's frustrating at times. I have printed the map questions in large font (modified my lesson and took out the answers) but we haven't gotten into a good flow of using it, and it also has its own little confusing visual things. 

Overall she is getting the idea of maps. At first (1-2 yrs ago) she definitely did not. But over time, she's gotten the idea of how they relate to the physical world.

She's a pretty good reader, but she definitely could not read and follow the instructions of this material, or anything of this quality, on her own. It is a bummer to be neither an auditory nor a visual learner. 😞 She is good w/ piano, dance and sports where she can copy someone's movements almost exactly after watching once or twice, whereas I need to have it shown to me (and explained w/words) over and over! So we're opposites. It helps me to remember this.

sounds like she is visual, but just not a great reader as of yet. 

What if instead of asking her the questions or asking her to do something you just modeled it for her, like with the dance example? Seems she learns well watching someone else do something, so even though it seems like she'd have to do the pointing to the country for it to be learning, for her it might be better to watch you find it. Maybe alternate questions with you doing one and modeling it, and then her doing it?

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And you've had a complete auditory workup?  What you've described is exactly what I dealt with in teaching my oldest and I had no idea why it was so hard to keep him engaged let alone getting him engaged.  Turns out he was severely hearing impaired and it wasn't dx until he was 15! He was that good at using his resources and over time had just naturally taught himself lip reading.  When you are teaching these lessons are you face to face, off to the side, back to her -- I just wonder if your positioning makes a difference (in reference to you calling her name while she is upstairs and slow to hear).  Just a thought.

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Hmmm she had an evaluation with an audiologist about 4 yrs ago... she was borderline for an APD... he said to have her retested in 2 yrs but I never did. She’s never had a comprehensive hearing test, only a quick screening a few different times. I’ll definitely revisit that.

she does struggle with phonemic awareness, is that an APD thing? I can’t remember. Today while doing a computer phonics program the computer said “hot” but she heard “pot” so she got it wrong. 😣 frustrating for her. 

Edited by Jenn in CA
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47 minutes ago, Jenn in CA said:

Hmmm she had an evaluation with an audiologist about 4 yrs ago... she was borderline for an APD... he said to have her retested in 2 yrs but I never did. She’s never had a comprehensive hearing test, only a quick screening a few different times. I’ll definitely revisit that.

she does struggle with phonemic awareness, is that an APD thing? I can’t remember. Today while doing a computer phonics program the computer said “hot” but she heard “pot” so she got it wrong. 😣 frustrating for her. 

If you can't hear well, you can get phonemes confused because you'll mis-hear them.  But, you can also have separate phonemic awareness problems.

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It does sound like auditory processing.  Auditory processing is really broad and sometimes when APD or CAPD (central auditory processing) is used people are meaning certain things by it.  
 

So basically — yes, it sounds like auditory processing.  But that is not equivalent to APD or CAPD and recommended things to do might be different.

In other words — dyslexia remediation with phonemic awareness can be what is recommended for “this” auditory processing but it might not be what pops up if saying APD or CAPD.  

Fun times, lol.  
 

Something people look at is the Barton student screening.  That would be like — it is serious enough it needs to be improved before starting Barton.

But if it’s not that serious, or if maybe it used to be that serious but has gotten better with remediation — mis-hearings can still come up here and there.  
 

 

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Something to consider with her dance classes and things, when she is watching, is she more copying other kids and/or the teacher, and having trouble following verbal instructions?  This is a common thing to see.  
 

For example — always doing great when everyone is doing the same thing.  Not doing as well when they go first or when some kids are supposed to do one thing and some another — until it has been gone through a time or two.  Other kids frequently giving advice like “you are supposed to do this.”  
 

Being able to copy is a really good coping mechanism.  It is very desirable.  It’s not desirable if nobody realizes she could benefit from having directions given at a shorter distance or maybe explained in a very clear way.  
 

Ime an activity teacher who works with younger age groups does these things automatically, and activity teachers who don’t are not as aware of ways to do things like this automatically.  They aren’t used to adjusting in the same ways.  
 

 

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Also as far as auditory processing — some testing can be done by a speech therapist.  It’s not all done by an audiologist.  It depends a lot on what all is being seen.  
 

It makes a big difference if kids seem to have dyslexia only, APD only, or seem to have much broader language issues, or seem to have a global delay or developmental delay.  
 

Or ADHD.  Etc.  

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13 hours ago, Jenn in CA said:

Hmmm she had an evaluation with an audiologist about 4 yrs ago... she was borderline for an APD... he said to have her retested in 2 yrs but I never did. She’s never had a comprehensive hearing test, only a quick screening a few different times. I’ll definitely revisit that.

she does struggle with phonemic awareness, is that an APD thing? I can’t remember. Today while doing a computer phonics program the computer said “hot” but she heard “pot” so she got it wrong. 😣 frustrating for her. 

My slow processor has APD, and this is something that is typical for him. He also has dyslexia, but this symptom is something that is part of his APD. He's actually getting therapy for this now. We've not had an audiologist who could do it until now (he's almost 12). It's similar to some of the dyslexia therapy but targets a different brain region/breakdown. 

If she was borderline for APD, I would be curious if they ran the WHOLE test or parts. The screening (SCAN 3), has some "optional" parts that some audiologists will not run. One of them is the test for temporal processing (Time Compressed Sentences)--basically the rate at which you hear speech. My son's score on that optional part a couple of months ago was the .4th percentile, but he passed the part of the screening that is always done. It's crazy. 

Anyway, the therapy seems to be going good places. His audiologist uses the Buffalo Model for his therapy. There is also a program called CAPDOTS that is very good, but each therapy might work for different parts of auditory processing--you'd have to ask.

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If you are thinking about testing, I think — think really broad.  There are a lot of things that can be narrowed down to APD.  And that can go along with APD.  It is a specific place to start, depending on what has already been done.  
 

 The thing with not qualifying through public school...... if she were enrolled and you had outside testing or more teacher observations and classroom performance — maybe she would actually qualify for services, or have non-IEP services.  
 

Ime — to some extent sometimes, there are a million things that all boil down to — teach her the way you have already been teaching her.  

But then I think you could get some useful information, too!  And maybe ideas for therapies or programs to add in at home.  
 

 

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