Could someone help me with this please.

[taggingalong]

In one of my sons assessments it says my son has high average verbal and non verbal ability his processing speeds falls into the below average high lighting a slight difficulty in his working memory. i need this in easier to understand language if that makes any sense. thanks for your help. he is due to be statemented. just wish they would hurry up this is all getting me down now. thanks for listening.

[mrs fussy]

In one of my sons assessments it says my son has high average verbal and non verbal ability his processing speeds falls into the below average high lighting a slight difficulty in his working memory. i need this in easier to understand language if that makes any sense. thanks for your help. he is due to be statemented. just wish they would hurry up this is all getting me down now. thanks for listening.

Hi sorry no offering any help just a question for you who carried out these tests and were they for part of his statementing

Mrs F x my <'> going out to you as regards the getting you down bit just remember your not alone.

[pearl]

I'd say it means he's brighter than average but slower at doing stuff than average - the information goes in & is understood, but takes more time for this to happen than it does with an NT child.

JP is the same - in the bottom 2% for processing speed which devastated me at the time.

However, didnt stop him getting a job

[taggingalong]

hi thanks for your replys. the tests were done through the educational physcologist at school for learning and behaviour problems. no i dont think it was start of the statementing process as i was only told this was going to happen to him to weeks before he finished school in june. these tests were actually carried out in 06. now they think there has been a shut down in progress , This is why i really need to find out what the problem actually is and why his progress has stopped..

[Bard]

It means he needs more thinking time than the average child.

He needs time to understand, mull things over and then integrate the new information with his existing knowledge. All children go through this when they are learning things, but most manage to handle multiple sources and process them quickly. He will have more difficulty.

He might need material presented differently and in different formats. He might need to have the same concept explained and demonstrated in a variety of ways in order to understand it. When he's trying to answer a question, it'll take longer to get an answer and he may get stressed or angry if other people don't give him the space that he needs. Choosing and deciding are also tricky areas. Getting distracted by other stimuli that interfere is also a problem.

I'm sure that someone else with more experience of this with ASDs will explain better.

I've just come across it with NT children who have great difficulty processing information due to other learning needs, and had to adapt my teaching to suit.

Edited September 1, 2007 by Bard

[Mumble]

Bard - you've just described me really well!!! (To a 'T', I think is the correct phrase here but I have no idea why). I'm so impressed I'm not even going to have a go at you for your 'average child' comment.

 

I do think Bard and Pearl have put this well so all I can add is a third witch's opinion from my own AS perspective. I need longer to process what I hear and to verbalise my response - longer than would be considered normal in the usual way that conversations work for NTs.

 

When someone says something to me, there are 4 main issues:

1. It sets off a multiple chain of complex associations - a bit like several tangets to the word association thread going off at once - to work with this to find the piece I need and to make the correct connections to other information in my brain is very difficult
2. Anxiety - given that there is so much going on I'm incredibly concerned about saying the wrong thing - misunderstanding or being misunderstood - and so over-process which leads back into (1) above
3. Auditory processing - the more I have understood about myself the more I have come to realise that this probably underlies a huge amount of my difficulties. Apparently when most people talk to someone in a crowded room they can hear in more detail the person talking to them - I hear all the conversations going on equally and so have great diffiuclty picking out the words that belong to the conversation I'm supposed to be having
4. Other sensory issues - as well as trying to pick out and process the conversation against other conversations, I'm picking it out against other 'background' noise whilst also struggling to cope with visual difficulties (which until recently I thought were normal) - the more I struggle to process and the more stressed I get, the worse the difficulties become and the harder it becomes to process.

Bard gives many good suggestions - and what she says about the space and getting stressed is very true for me - it is incredibly frustrating when people just give up on trying to understand me or think I have nothing to say because I'm slower to respond - or worse still think they know what I'm going to say and finish my sentence for me. Equally so it's so important to realise that the issue isn't a hearing issue, it's a processing issue. Repeating the question s l o w l y or loudly isn't going to help me in the slightest - I simply have to start the processing all over again because of the distraction - which leads back to stress and anger.

 

Adaptations can be very simple once people know what they are dealing with and accept that I'm not unintelligent because I need extra processing time - I get to the same place as others but in my own unique way . Most students doing my course have an hour 1-2-1 a fortnight to go through their work and answer questions and discuss next steps etc. I have 3 hours for the same meeting and a supervisor who now understands how to work with me to get the best from me. This isn't an advantage over other students - it takes acount of my needs and puts me on a level with others. I also communicate a lot more by email because I have time to think through what I am writing. It's one of the big reasons I can't use a phone because the other person can't understand that the phoneline hasn't gone dead but that I am processing what I have heard. I hear sounds which I have to translate (process) into something that makes sense.

 

You just need to work with him and find out what works for the both of you. You may find things like double instructions get lost on him - for instance "Go upstairs and put your socks on". You may go up later and find he's gone upstairs but not processed the second instruction. Work either on single instructions or give picture clues to help structure actions.

 

Above all though you have to remember - it may take longer or a different route, but he'll still get there. Basically that's what these results are saying.

[pearl]

third witch that made me laugh Mumble

 

Read your post with interest. I'm NT (well I was the last time I looked ) but I could relate to some of the things you said, in particular the carrying on a convo when there's others going on around, I find that incredibly difficult as I'm tuning in & out of other peoples at the same time.

 

The same if someone leaves their TV on when I visit, I get soooo distracted.

 

And parties etc, gaaaaah! That infamous christmas do last year when I got ver, ver drunk, I was watching people holding conversations with millions of decibels of disco noise round them. I had no idea how they did it so just kept drinking instead (big mistake)

 

So is this my inner Aspie speaking or can you have processing problems independently? Hmmmm.....

 

Sorry this is going slightly off at a tangent taggingalong!

[taggingalong]

thank you so much everyone for your information. it is also good to hear from people with as giving me their input. they know first hand what this processing stuff is all about lol. dont know what i would have done without this forum and all you people that have so much more knowledge. hopefully when i do get his statement i will know exactly what the problem is and what help he needs and what help i can give him. thanks again everyone.

[BusyLizzie100]

Read your post with interest. I'm NT (well I was the last time I looked ) but I could relate to some of the things you said, in particular the carrying on a convo when there's others going on around, I find that incredibly difficult as I'm tuning in & out of other peoples at the same time.

 

The same if someone leaves their TV on when I visit, I get soooo distracted.

 

And parties etc, gaaaaah! That infamous christmas do last year when I got ver, ver drunk, I was watching people holding conversations with millions of decibels of disco noise round them. I had no idea how they did it so just kept drinking instead (big mistake)

 

Yeah, me too! And the bit about the wine, too...!

 

Lizzie x