Slow processing speed

[RaveOn]

Does anyone know anything about processing speed?

My DD has autism and dyspraxia. She has a lot of difficulties, but apart from handwriting, school work has always been a strength up till now. At primary school she was above average, and she did well in her SATs, particularly English.

She is now in year 7 and is suddenly having lots of difficulties with her work, and we don't really understand why.

She is finding it hard to follow lessons, particularly when the teacher is doing lots of talking at the front of the class - she says she finds it impossible to keep up with. She says she doesn't understand when teachers explain things - but everyone else seems to follow it.

She is also have lots of problems in lessons that require a lot of writing, eg. english, RE. She can't seem to write more than a paragragh, and then gets stuck. This is having an impact on assessments - in English they are expected to produce a piece of extended writing (teacher says 1.5 - 2 pages) but DD can only write a paragragh - even when given extra time. She has a laptop so it's not handwriting that's the issue.

Does this sound like slow processing speed? Is it possible for a child with this difficulty to do well at primary, and then struggle in secondary? Is there anything else that could be causing these difficulties?

She already has an EHCP, but she is being reassessed by Ed Psych on Tuesday because she has missed a lot of school due to anxiety/school refusal.

We really want to get to the bottom of what is causing her anxiety in school. One of the things she mentioned was panicking because she can't follow what the teacher is saying - so I want to ask them to check her processing speed and anything else that could be causing her problems, but as ed psych time is limited I dont want to ask her to spend it on unnecessary tests. Any ideas/advice welcome

Yes she's in sets for some subjects - definitely maths and science.

They don't seem to have text books at her school, but I think handoduts would definitely help.

Showing her working out in maths is another issue - she deletes it / rubs it out. Maths teacher not impressed as I found out on parents evening!

Also copying sums off the board is an issue as this takes all lesson, so she doesn't have time to complete them. The teacher had written them out for her in her book a few times in desperation.

Not sure about pre-teaching her, homework is a massive issue for her.

Copying sums off the board - such a waste of effort! I was a slow processor/slow writer at school and found copying off the board unbearable!

Ok good advice chocsaregone thanks.

My other bugbear is when they get slow processors to start at the beginning like everyone else and only ever do the easy sums for example. Or things like colouring in maps, not actually learning anything.

A great tip from our maths teacher re slowness with homework is to do every other sum then you get the full progression range of difficulty for half the effort

I can't help with "whole lesson to painstakingly write one paragraph" though as we are still grappling with that one.

Sadly I found that our Ed psych had never even heard of apd. Was pretty useless really. I certainly wouldn't rely on them.

DS2 is dyslexic with poor working memory and slow processing. That said he got to Y13 before being diagnosed- having previously been regarded as bright but disorganised ( and lazy) boy - as he did well verbally. We could not get a LA Ed Psych assessment as his reading age had always been way above his chronological age. So we paid for one and a vision assessment and they were life changing for him. He also has a high IQ ( top 2%) and so was able to work around his problems. The key was a very frustrated teacher commenting on how slowly he wrote in class and the learning support teacher looking at him in detail. He has just finished an MA in history but he cannot cope with a train or bus timetable, He dare not travel through London on his own as he can't work out the Tube

Yes! Please push, push, push for her to get properly assessed. DD1 was only diagnosed at the end of year 10, but which time she had serious mental health problems because she'd been working so hard to compensate.

Auditory processing issues perhaps? But honestly it sounds more like executive function/working memory. Working memory doesn't have anything to do with recall, it's more like RAM on a computer, whereas remembering facts and events and such (long term memory) is like the hard drive. Hmm that will only help if you're familiar with different types of computer memory.

Essentially working memory is being able to hold information in your mind and manipulate that information at the same time. It's like a sort of mental "workspace" to shuffle things around on, like a desk, or like the working out space you get in maths exams. You use this much more for spoken information than written because you've got to hear the instruction, process what it means, then work out which parts were important and which were waffle (Neurotypical people tend to give verbal instructions in a rather waffly way, because this is considered friendly) and break each instruction down into tasks. Most people can do that almost instinctively, and they will immediately either imagine themselves doing the tasks in the right order, or compile a kind of mental image of a checklist or boxes, or be able to "say" the tasks to themselves in their head. They might not even do this consciously. The thing is that their brain is handling the moving around of various cards on the "desk" almost immediately without them even being aware of it and usually without dropping any cards. But if your working memory is compromised in some way either because of a disorder which affects it, or because you're very tired or distracted, you will tend to "drop cards" and then it becomes very difficult to work out what is happening because some of the information you needed is now missing.

With written information there's much less working memory needed because it is already on a piece of paper in front of you, so you can re-read it as many times as you need to to get the information back and it's just somehow easier. Also written instructions in particular tend not to include waffle and conversation.

Neurotypical people tend to give verbal instructions in a rather waffly way, because this is considered friendly

Great description - so true

by which time she had serious mental health problems because she'd been working so hard to compensate - she's already half way there :(

She hasn't spent a full week in lessons since feb half term due to anxiety & panic attacks. Either to ill to go into school, or going in and spending half the day in pastoral care, and they've sent her home on a few occasions too. That's why I'm desperate to get to the bottom of it. A lot of it is social anxiety, but she's getting stressed about the work too.

It's so bad that so many of your children weren't tested or diagnosed until year 10/11/12/13

I'm guilty of it myself even when teaching! (I mainly teach adults). It's just really hard to go against the social conditioning that barking orders at people is aggressive/rude. It's very possible to break down instructions into steps without adding any quips about having our thinking caps on today or throwing in a reminder to underline but the "waffle" way is more effective at keeping the majority of pupils engaged and not feeling dictated to so unfortunately it fails the ones who need more direct input.

What a teacher can do, if there is no provision for written summarised instructions/direct TA support and they are willing, is offer a bullet pointed summary immediately after the waffle, or feed back to class "So: What are you doing first? And then? And then?" It's a useful attention and understanding checker as well as helping out the ones who struggle with the less direct instructions. But they need to be aware this is happening and remember to look/listen for it at the end.

www.ldonline.org/article/24880/

Gosh your poor dd, it sounds like she is really struggling. If she is that anxious it must be taking a lot of her energy to just manage that in school, let alone concentrate on work. Is she open to CAMHS in your area?

She has been under CAMHS previously in year 4-5 but they discharged her. She was re-referred at Feb half term and is on the waiting list, but no appointment yet, apparently waiting times are up to 40 weeks in our area.

She's been seeing the school counsellor since last November, but it doesn't seem to have helped her.

I know a bit about processing speed issues as one of my children has it. Adhd/dyslexia with very high ability and very low processing speed. I got him fully assessed by a private clinical psychologist who specialises in educational problems, not and educational psychologist. I was advised thia was the beat route. Very expensive but we got a very thorough understanding of our child's needs and issues. PM me if you want

Following with interest as my yr 5 son has slow processing speeds and executive function disorder. So nervous about him starting secondary school next September!

This all sounds so familiar! My kids have dyslexia, ADHD, and one is autistic. I honestly couldn't get school to work for them as they weren't learning and were absolutely lost in the system. Homework was impossible. My kids got no help in class at all because they were quiet and polite but in a loud classroom environment, learned nothing. We Home Ed now and I'm aiming for 5-6 core GCSEs to get onto specific college courses, and my kids will be attempting GCSEs aged 16ish.

Had we had more help, definitely a scribe would have helped, as well as headphones with only the teacher's microphone connected to remove all other audio distractions. And sitting right up front. Being allowed to type notes instead of writing out, as they say they can't both listen and write, at the same time. I'm so disappointed at how lax our schools were with assistance.

What score did the Ed psych give for her processing last time? As I understand it slow processing when everything else is quick can be a problem even when still in the normal range.

Pretty sure DD(23) has undiagnosed ADD. She went from being very high achieving at primary to gradually slipping down the sets in high school.

She had a big problem in lots of lessons where teachers basically talked at the class. She said she would completely lose the thread and just look out of the window. Her understanding was much better if she tried to take notes, but so many times she was told off by teachers, "Just put your pen down and listen."

Mindmaps helped. Writing stuff down helped. Doing lots of past papers too. Being totally organised with lists within lists and a journal was essential.

DD was fortunate to do A levels that were 50% coursework and I think this helped her confidence massively. She has a decent degree but it has been very hard. (For lots of reasons including overuse, of what I suspect was self medicating cannabis).

DD's first admin/sales job out of Uni required her to sit and watch a video and then be told what to do. She came home every night for the first week saying she didn't know what she was doing, everyone else got it except her, she is the thick one. Fast forward a couple of weeks and she was the best of the ten new starters. After a couple of months she was getting far better sales figures than people doing the job for years.

Its really hard for our kids. It's very confidence sapping. Keeping their chins up is essential.

OP - my son has slow processing speed and he is very similar to your daughter. Lots of anxiety, incomplete homework in homework diary because teachers only put homework up on board at the end of lessons (so homework not done/handed in on time as a result) etc.
We had him diagnosed in summer of year 7 and he's in the bottom 2% of processing speed and in bottom quartile for executive functions also. He freezes if you give him too much information to process at once.
What has helped him is:

• getting a laptop and touchtyping courses - he's getting much more down on paper now
• keeping on at his teachers about the issue and accomodations for him (homework handed out to him, print outs of work rather than copying things from boards)
• getting extra time for assessments (time and a half)
• letting him know that its ok for him to take longer to do his homework than the 30 minutes teachers tell him it should take
• working on his confidence - years of struggling has taken its toll on his self esteem so when he really puts in the effort we make sure we congratulate him for his hard work

He's just chosen his GCSEs (his school takes 3 years to prep kids for GCSEs rather than 2) and, in conjunction with school, we've decided he wont do a foreign language as he struggles with the mutiple processing requirements.

There's a great book - why bright kids cant keep up - available on Amazon. That was the book I read which made me realise that processing speed was my son's issue - but also helped us as a family figure out how to make accomodations for him too.

Great to find this thread! Ds has just been assessed by ed psyc and is in the 9th percentile for processing speed and 8th for working memory. On his other tests he was in the 80th percentile and up. He also has dysgraphia and anxiety. He is very defensive, which makes it very difficult to speak with him about anything he finds distressing. He goes into secondary next September and I am already anxious about the move for him! Good to hear of solutions other people have found work!