"If My Kid Is So Smart, Why Is He So Slow?"

"I can see why everyone is so frustrated with Dennis, because I'm frustrated with him too! He can't get anything done on time. Whether it's his homework, putting on his shoes, or taking down a phone message, he can't get it done! If I didn't know him so well, I'd think he just didn't care, but I know he does. In fact, he cares a lot. He just doesn't know how to get motivated or get started. His dad thinks he's just lazy, and I have to admit it does seem like that, but I know he would do things faster if he could. He has great ideas and will talk about how excited he is about writing a paper for his history class, but then when it comes time to actually do it, he just sits there, seemingly paralyzed with fear—or maybe just daydreaming—I don't know! If he didn't care about the work, he wouldn't be so excited about the topic, right? I try to help him get started by telling him to copy down some ideas on notecards, but it takes him forever to find the information in the book and even longer to just copy it down. It seems he's been like this since he was born. Even in first grade, when he had to just copy—only copy—his spelling words, it would take him 10 times as long as it should have. His father thinks he's lazy, his teachers think he just doesn't care, and I'm spending my life yelling at him to get things done. How did we get into this mess?"

Some kids are naturally fast. They run, talk, draw, and do all sorts of things at a rate that seems appropriate for their age. Other kids don't, or perhaps it would be fairer to say they can't. These are kids who may have what are called processing speed deficits. Information processing speed is a term that is frequently used in the field of neuropsychology and is used increasingly in the fields of education and child development. As you'll discover in the next few chapters, it is a term that refers to a complex process and so is defined and measured in many ways. It also can't be understood in isolation from other areas of thinking, such as language, memory, or attention.

In general, though, processing speed involves one or more of the following functions: the amount of time it takes to perceive information (this can be through any of the senses, but usually through the visual and auditory channels), process information, and/or formulate or enact a response. Another way to define processing speed is to say it's the time required to perform an intellectual task or the amount of work that can be completed with a certain period of time. Even more simply, processing speed could be defined as how long it takes to get stuff done.

Because we place such a high value on doing things quickly in our culture, it can be difficult to live with a nervous system that needs more time to process information. Kids and adults who are slower at these types of processing tasks are sometimes assumed to be lacking in intelligence, but this really isn't the case. However, processing speed does interact with other areas of cognitive functioning by negatively impacting the ability to quickly come up with an answer, retrieve information from long-term memory, and remember what you're supposed to be doing at a given time. In other words, it's possible that someone with slow processing speed will, as a result, be impaired in other areas of thinking and may even score lower on tests of intelligence (more about this area in the next chapter), but this isn't necessarily the case, since being cognitively compromised in one area isn't the same as being less intelligent overall.

For example, Dennis was actually a very intelligent kid, with a Verbal IQ in the 90th percentile of kids his age, even though his actions and thought processes seemed so slow. Dennis's slow output seems to be disconnected from his natural intellect, which creates the assumption that he's just not capable of completing even simple homework tasks such as copying his weekly spelling words.

Dennis's family has endured countless episodes where his lack of productivity has made their daily life a constant battleground. Many of the instances at home involve homework and chore completion. Often Dennis will just shrug his shoulders when he has disappointed his parents by not doing something they've asked him to do, but other times he reacts angrily and tells them they just don't "get it." "You think I can do this, but I can't!" is a frequent retort.

One mental health professional told Dennis's parents that he possibly had something called oppositional defiant disorder; another said he exhibited symptoms of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and still another said to just "let it go" because he was just "being a boy." Dennis's teacher and the school psychologist thought it could be a "processing problem," but they never explained what that meant or how they had come to that conclusion.

Dennis's parents didn't think any of these labels or explanations fit perfectly or captured the upheaval, turmoil, and trauma created by Dennis's inability to complete work in a timely fashion. His inability to finish his homework required constant vigilance and enormous energy from his parents. The effort his parents spent trying to help him get things done created even more resentment from his siblings. His parents were constantly fighting over how to handle his difficulties. They felt angry, frustrated, overwhelmed, worn out, and hopeless—and they had no idea what to do or where to turn.

"SO HOW DO I KNOW THAT MY CHILD HAS A SLOW PROCESSING SPEED?"

Perhaps you picked up this book because you have a child like Dennis, or perhaps the idea of a child being smart but unable to keep up resonated with you. Perhaps you've sought help from mental health or school professionals, some of whom might have advised making sure your child gets enough sleep, eats a better breakfast, "comes to school ready to learn," or that you be more consistent in managing your child's behavior. Perhaps you've tried all of those suggestions. Perhaps you didn't need to because you knew it wasn't just a sleep or motivational issue but something else about your child's learning or cognitive style that had yet to be explained.

True processing speed deficits should be evaluated through a formal...