Slow Processing Speed as a Root Cause of Learning Struggles, Anxiety, and More with Dr. Amy Moore and Sandy Zamalis

On this episode of the Brainy Moms podcast, cognitive psychologist Dr. Amy Moore and board-certified cognitive specialist Sandy Zamalis break down a vital learning skill called processing speed. Tune in to find out what this cognitive skill is all about, how processing speed can impact everything from academics and sports to driving and following instructions. You’ll hear examples of how slow processing speed might manifest in your child or teen, potential causes for low processing speed, and simple ways you can help at home. Dr. Amy and Sandy also explain how cognitive training is designed to remediate processing speed deficits and what to look for when choosing interventions. Don’t miss this final episode in our special series on cognitive skills.

ABOUT US: 
Brainy Moms is a parenting podcast hosted by cognitive psychologist Dr. Amy Moore. Dr. Amy and her rotating co-hosts bring listeners conversations with experts on topics in parenting, child development, education, psychology, mental health, and neuroscience. Listeners leave with tips and helpful advice for helping moms and kids thrive in life, learning, and relationships. 

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Transcript

Dr. Amy: Hi, smart moms and dads. Welcome to another episode of the Brainy Moms podcast brought to you today by LearningRx Brain Training Centers. I'm your host, Dr. Amy Moore, and I'm here with my co-host, Sandy Zamalis. And Sandy and I are going to continue our conversation on cognitive skills, those skills that the brain uses to help us think and learn all day, every day.

And so we've been talking about the different skills like attention and visual processing and reasoning and auditory processing skills. And so today we are going to talk about processing speed. Hi, Sandy. 

Sandy: I'm excited about this one. It's taken us a bit to coordinate to be able to talk about this topic, but, um, processing speed is super interesting to me for lots of different reasons.

And I know we're going to expound on that today. So let's kind of get to the basics. What is processing speed? What do you mean? 

Dr. Amy: Yeah. So processing speed is the brain's ability to take in information, interpret that information, and then act on that information. So, for example, let's say you're driving and you see a stop sign.

So, that is visual input that the brain has to recognize, take it in, say, oh, that's a stop sign. What does a stop sign mean? A stop sign means I need to stop. And then the brain says to the body, press the brakes, stop, right? So acquire it, interpret it, and then act on it. That would be processing speed. 

Sandy: So let's extrapolate that.You gave a great driving example. What does that look like in a five-year-old? What does that look like in school age children? 

Dr. Amy: Yeah, what a great question. Um, so we use processing speed, to inquire, interpret, and act on data. Anything in our environment, right? So processing speed is, ubiquitous, right? We, we need it for interpreting anything from our parents saying, Hey, it's time for dinner, right? So that would be okay. I recognize my mom's voice. Her voice is saying words. So I'm hearing those words, what did she just say to me? Hey, it's time to come down for dinner. And now I need to act on that. Right? I have to put down what I'm working on, walk down the stairs, and walk into the kitchen for dinner. So, as simple as that to, um, a teacher teaching, a math problem. Okay, I see my teacher writing numbers on the board. This is what those numbers mean, and this is what she's telling me I need to do to those numbers in order to solve this problem.

And so it's the speed and efficiency in which I can take that in, interpret it, and then act on it. And so some people who have slow processing speed might take a really long time to react to the information, right? And so we don't know whether it's a breakdown in acquiring it, interpreting it, or acting on it.

But somewhere in that 3-step process, there is something slowing it down. And so that's how we might see slow processing speed show up. 

Sandy: What does fast processing speed look like other than just, you know, listening and getting responding quickly? 

Dr. Amy: Well, that's exactly what it looks like. Yeah. Right. And so, you know, we can see people with fast processing speed that don't have accurate responses right? So we could have, a teacher teaching a math problem and a child hearing the teacher, seeing what she's writing on the board, and acting on what she's telling us to do, but solving it inaccurately because you did it too quickly. Or you can see someone with accurate processing speed that's fast, right? You hear the instructions, you see the numbers on the board, you act on it appropriately, and you solve it correctly. So you can have fast processing speed and be accurate or inaccurate. 

Sandy: So when we talk about processing speed, we always talk about it as kind of in that cohort of automatic processing skills. Can we kind of skew our description that way as well? Like, what does that mean as it being one of those automatic processing skills our brain uses? You've done a great job of describing in action what it looks like, but it's running behind the scenes all the time, right? 

Dr. Amy: Yes, and yes, you just nailed it. So, some cognitive skills that we use, require active processing, such as reasoning, right? We have to decide on a technique that we're going to use to solve this problem based on prior knowledge and prior experience, right, of what we know and techniques that we've learned in order to solve problem.

Processing speed is working underneath that process. How quickly we're able to retrieve those different techniques for solving a problem. How quickly we're able to act on those techniques for solving a problem. Right? So while process, I mean, while reasoning is a higher order cognitive skill, processing speed is automatic. It is just how quickly those wheels are turning underneath how we've chosen to drive the car. 

Sandy: How can that affect attention? 

Dr. Amy: Hmm. Yes. Um, so if our processing speed is slow and we have low attention skills, then it's very easy to become distracted because it's taking too long, right? So we're either we're either losing our ability to focus on something because it's taking too long to process it. If the if the underlying processing speed is slow, then that attention can be impacted. 

Sandy: So that's really important to know, because from, for example, a teacher's perspective, if a teacher is giving feedback to a parent, this happened to me this week where I was doing a consultation with a parent and the feedback they were getting was that their child just really had a hard time focusing. But when we did some testing, while there was some attentional component to it, there was a weak processing speed component to it as well. And that was just a really important piece of information. And I think a teacher could be empowered by knowing, well, they're processing slower. Um, I might need to change how I am, um, giving the information so that they can receive it more clearly and can process it at their pace.

Dr. Amy: Yeah, absolutely. And, and so sometimes we don't give enough credence to the impact that processing speed can have on all of those other cognitive skills. And then of course, all of the other subjects, right. That we use those cognitive skills to learn and, and yeah. 

Sandy: Yeah. Um, let's be super practical cause we've done this in all the other cognitive skills. How does weak processing affect things like reading? 

Dr. Amy: Yeah, so a couple of different ways. We know that processing speed can impact working memory and the reason it can impact working memory is because, um, if our processing speed is slow, and we're trying to hold multiple things in memory at 1 time in order to act on them, we might lose some of those items that we're holding in working memory because we're processing too slowly and we require working memory in order to read fluently and so it absolutely processing speed can impact our ability to decode words. It can impact our ability to read fluently because if we're decoding too slowly, if we're breaking down or you're trying to manipulate the sounds and the letters that are attached to those sounds.

If it's taking us too long to do that, then our reading is not going to be fluent. And when our reading is not fluent, then our comprehension is impacted, right? If it's taking us so long just to fluently read words, we're so focused on decoding words, and we're not actually processing the meaning behind those words.

So it has this trickle down effect. Slow processing impacts decoding, which impacts fluency, which impacts comprehension. 

Sandy: Yeah. So just like a domino effect, really? 

Dr. Amy: Absolutely. Yeah. 

Sandy: Same in math, I'm assuming. 

Dr. Amy: Yeah, absolutely. Um, you know, we need to be able to, um, hold things in working memory, right? Cause math is exactly that, like we're manipulating multiple pieces of information in order to solve problems.

And so if we lose some of those pieces of information then we can't solve it. But, you know, another way that slow processing speed impacts math is that math instruction tends to go pretty quickly. And so if, if you have slow processing speed, and you're not able to process the instructions quickly enough, the teacher has moved on to the next step, or the next 2 or 3 steps in the problem solving process and you're still on a prior step. So you're not even able to encode everything that she's saying. 

Sandy: That leads to a lot of frustration for individuals with weaker processing speed, right? 

Dr. Amy: Absolutely. And then that frustration has an impact on processing speed as well. So it's this kind of vicious cycle. Um, so what happens here is your processing speed is slow. You get behind in the instructional process and that creates an emotional response, right? Frustration is an emotional response. Well, we know that that response is a fight or flight amygdala hijack of our prefrontal cortex, in which we can no longer access our reasoning abilities. So, that is going to impact our processing speed, right?

So we start with slow processing speed, and then we get frustrated because of our slow processing speed, which slows down our processing speed. 

Sandy: So with that same kind of thought process in mind, um, let's talk about the life trajectory of processing speed. Does it stay the same? Does it change as we age and grow?

Dr. Amy: That's a really great question. So what we do know is if there's a cause of slow processing speed in childhood. Or during the teenage years, um, the, your processing speed is not going to grow along with the rest of your development, right? So processing speed does not improve like height or weight change.

Does that make sense? So it makes sense, right? So, if there is an organic reason, if there's a reason why you have slow processing speed, and we can talk about those potential causes if you want, then without an intervention of some sort, then processing speed will not improve. However, let's say there's not a problem with processing speed, right? So your processing speed is functioning normally. Then the development looks like stable increase in processing speed ability until about your mid to late twenties, where it peaks. So you're never faster than that's annoying, right? So mid to late twenties is when your processing speed is the best it's ever going to be.

And then it slowly begins to decline. And so we see that trajectory. Um, we've, we've used over the years, gold standard cognitive testing to plot the trajectory of increase and decline and all of the different cognitive skills. And unfortunately, processing speed is 1 of those that begins to decline at age 30 and continues to decline throughout the lifespan.

We can improve it. Right, we can throw an intervention in there and keep it from declining as quickly. But that is the typical trajectory. 

Sandy: Well, and that's why, like in midlife and, um, even as we start to get into the, our senior years, you know, we do start to experience more frustration. Things are coming at us too fast and we're not able to keep up because naturally our cognitive skill of processing speed is starting to decline.

And then of course we think of, I'm thinking of my grandparents, you know, safety issues, right? You know, can they drive, can they make, uh, decisions quick enough? 

Dr. Amy: Yeah, absolutely. And so processing speed impacts reaction time. And so we do see the impact of declining processing speed as we age in driving. It shows up in driving very clearly.

Sandy: Yeah, well, when you were giving that example earlier, I was just thinking of, you know, your little toddler who, um, you know, is running towards the street and you're yelling stop, right? It's a safety issue if they're, if they're processing speed is slow, because by the time they've heard what you've said and are able to process it and then make a decision about what needs to happen and, you know.

There's some delay, and that can throw things off. So it can really be a safety issue, um, at its, you know, basic level. 

Dr. Amy: Absolutely. Yeah. 

Sandy: Well, let's talk about causes. Um, you had kind of alluded to that. What are some causes of, uh, weaker processing speed that might show up? 

Dr. Amy: So we don't know exactly what the cause might be but what we have identified are some contributors and potential causes.

So let's talk about, um, neurological causes 1st. So, if you think about the way that neurons communicate. So our neurons look like little trees and so those trees have branches and those branches are what, uh, connect to 1 another in order to communicate across neurons. Okay. So there's a possibility that the space in between those, um, neurons is too big, right? It's called the synaptic gap or where the synapses connect. And so that space might be too large, right? That's 1 possibility. Um, another possibility is, something's going wrong with the way the neurotransmitters are working. So we know that neurotransmitters are the chemicals that actually carry those messages across that space between neurons across that synaptic gap.

And so in a brain with slow processing speed, there may not be enough neurotransmitters being sent by the sending neuron, or the catching neuron might not be able to catch enough of the neurotransmitters, or the sending neuron sends enough neurotransmitters, but they're getting sucked back up in the sending neuron. So that's another potential neurological reason that we could have slow processing speed. 

Another is that our neurons are coded with myelin…so it's this fatty substance called the myelin sheath and it does thin out that myelin coating over our neurons does get thinner as we age, but for some reason that that sheath might be too thin in younger people, which could, um, impact our ability, our neurons ability to communicate effectively.

So that's another potential, um, neurological reason. Um, but there are other reasons why we might see slow processing speed. So processing speed is associated with neurodevelopmental disorders, like ADHD and autism. So, it just is a byproduct of having 1 of those diagnoses. It's 1 of the symptoms that accompanies it.

And probably for 1 of those neurological reasons that I just mentioned, um, we see it with anxiety. And it's for the same reason I talked about that amygdala hijack, right? So, when, when we are in an emotional stress response, a fight or flight response, our prefrontal cortex goes offline. We aren't able to access reasoning and it just impacts our ability to, our brain's ability to effectively, um, process thoughts, right? So we see slow processing speed with anxiety. We also know that slow processing speed can cause anxiety. Right, so like we talked about that frustration point, if you're a child in a classroom, you have slow processing speed and you're called on to solve a problem or answer a question and you respond very slowly, that can be embarrassing.

You might be teased for that. And so then you worry about being called on the next time, which creates anxiety. Right, so it's a vicious cycle of slow processing speed and anxiety, slow processing speed and anxiety, um, 

Lack of sleep can slow our processing speed. Right? So our neurons don't function as well when we're sleep deprived. And so, you know, we talk a lot about the importance of sleep for thinking all the time for anyone, even if you don't have slow processing speed, right? It's like putting your brain through a car wash. It cleanses the toxins that build up throughout the day, so that your your neurons can communicate more effectively. And so we might see slow processing speed and slow reaction time in people who are sleep deprived. 

And then finally, um, slow processing speed can be a medication side effect. So, you know, if you or your child are on a medication that causes drowsiness or sleepiness, that might be why you're seeing slow processing speed, so that might not actually be an underlying cognitive skill deficit. It might just be a symptom, um, or a side effect of medication. So those are lots of different possible reasons why we might have slow processing speed. 

Sandy: Well, and it just goes to show how, you know, the brain can be affected by everything. So just really trying to understand and pinpoint, um, what's happening in the brain is really, really challenging.

So on that note, how do we measure processing speed and assess it in children and adults? 

Dr. Amy: Um, so there are several different tests that we use in the psychology world to measure processing speed. Um, and so we'll do things like, hey, I want you to rapidly name these items that you see. That's one way.

Another way is we want you to find two matching items. Right? So we'll give you an array of five or six symbols or pictures and we say, find the two that are exactly the same. And so those are the 2 most common ways that we measure processing speed. Some tests, especially digital cognitive tests are capable of measuring processing speed while they're measuring other, um, skills at the same time. So, they can say, all right, how are your visual processing skills and how quickly and accurately did you solve a visual processing task, and then it can generate a processing speed score at the same time. Um, we aren't capable of really doing that by hand but some of those cool digital tests can do that.

Sandy: Can you see processing speed Um, when you do any of the things you do for research, like the EEG, QEEG or FMRI, can you kind of watch how quickly the brain is working through stuff? I'm just curious. A totally curious question to throw at you. You weren't expecting that. 

Dr. Amy: I wasn't expecting that. And that is actually not something that I have measured in my clinical research, um, using neuroimaging. Um, so I don't, I don't, I don't know. Yeah. Okay. We'll have to dig a little deeper on that. We can see how efficiently the brain uses glucose for energy, right? Gotcha. Yeah. We can, we can see efficient electrical activity. And so especially with QEEG, we can see brain waves that are too fast or too slow. Okay.

Right. Right. Um, and so I would think that absolutely with functional MRI, if it's task based. That we can certainly measure how quickly that task is completed. 

Sandy: Okay. Well, let's kind of follow along that same line so we can assess it. We can kind of see where it's at. Um, what are some strategies or exercises, um, that we can do to improve processing speed?

Dr. Amy: Yeah. So I think the easiest and simplest way for us to help build processing speed skills is through games. That's the easiest way. So you have a child who you just want to encourage the development of processing speed, right? Because you recognize that that processing speed skill underlies every other skill, right?

Our ability to pay attention, our ability to process things visually and auditorily, how fast we can reason. Right? So we know that processing speed’s an important skill. We want to maximize our kids ability to to learn and think quickly and so, uh, games, especially speeded and timed games, uh, like Bop It and Simon and Spot It are all those where you have to do tasks quickly and accurately are phenomenal way to engage and increase processing speed.

And they can be super fun. It's an amazing way to connect with your kid and with each other. Um, and we play those games all the time in our house. I mean, my kids are adults and I will hear the Bop It from the other room because we leave it out. Um, and so that's just a super fun way to engage that cognitive skill along with others too, of course.

But that isn't how we remediate slow processing speed. So I want to really be clear about that distinction, that if your child truly has a processing speed deficit, all the board games in the world are not going to solve that issue. That requires a specific intervention like cognitive training. 

Sandy: Okay. We'll talk about cognitive training in just a little bit, but I want to kind of stay here for a minute because, um, I feel like, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, um, but I do feel like in education world, uh, there's a big move away from, um, speed work things that require students to build some automaticity and skill. So let's talk about that a little bit. 

Dr. Amy: Um, so unfortunately, when we recognize that a student is struggling, we want to accommodate that struggle. So, in the classroom, our 1st instinct is not to fix the problem. Our 1st instinct is to support the problem. And I think that that comes from a place of empathy and compassion and care.

So don't get me wrong. Right? But, I was a teacher before I became a psychologist, and it's the reason I became a psychologist because I recognized that we were missing something in the classroom. We had kids who were struggling, and we were providing these loving accommodations, but it wasn't fixing the problem.

And so these loving accommodations include things like extra time on tests. Extra time to complete work technology assistive devices, right? So a child who writes too slowly. We give them a keyboard. It fascinates me. In fact, my oldest son had a parietal lobe delay when he was in 2nd grade, and so the parietal lobe is responsible for that eye-hand coordination and that small motor coordination, including writing. And so, because he had this parietal lobe delay instead of giving him an intervention that would speed up the development of the parietal lobe, they gave him a keyboard so that he didn't have to write because his slow writing was causing everything else to slow down, right?

I can't complete my assignments in time because I write too slowly. When I'm writing too slowly, I'm getting frustrated. Then I'm getting amygdala hijacked, which slows down my processing speed and my ability to write. So they gave him a keyboard. I think that was loving. And caring and empathetic, right? We want to help this child keep up with his class. Um, but that didn't solve the problem. 

Sandy: And it would show up in other places too. Like anything that required like physicality, right? So sports, um, things like that. 

Dr. Amy: Um, absolutely. And actually putting him in active afterschool activities helped develop that parietal lobe, putting him in martial arts helped with that parietal lobe delay. 

Sandy: So let's talk about it from a remediation standpoint. How do you remediate processing speed? It can't just be done in games. Um, although that's helpful and if that skill is strong, it just helps continue to support that skill. But what about for a student who's really weak in that area and needs remediation to get them where they need to be?

Dr. Amy: Yeah. And let me clarify, if you just need a little bump in processing speed, those games are going to give you a little bump, right? Hey, seems to be working a little, a little too slowly. Let's do some of these for an hour every day at home and see if we can speed them up a little bit. And that's just kind of maybe a delay in the development of those skills because those skills have not been engaged.

One of the things that I neglected to mention when we talked about some neurological reasons why we might have slow processing speed. One of those is weak neural networks. So, the more we use a skill, the more we practice a skill, we are laying the communication between neurons that create networks of neurons that communicate.

And so the more we practice a skill, the stronger those neural networks become. And so let's say that those particular skills like handwriting, for instance, have not been practiced again and again and again, then we're going to have weak neural networks related to handwriting. So for some kids who just haven't spent a lot of time developing skills that require some speed, um, or where processing speed is important, they might just have weak neural networks that need to be strengthened through practice. And so, in that case, um, games might be the answer. So I do want to clarify that. Okay, but let's say it's a true deficit, right? That it's not just because they haven't been practiced. It's because we really need to develop the skill because it's weak because there's a deficiency there.

Um, then, we need a formal intervention like cognitive training. And so the difference is that cognitive training uses a variety of different intense mental tasks that are specifically designed to improve those individual cognitive skills, like processing speed. And so, a human trainer, a human cognitive trainer can deliver these intense tasks.

Um, they can pace it with a metronome so that they can gradually increase the intensity and speed with which, um, we can complete those tasks. That's what's going to drive neuroplasticity--that brain's ability to change with intense targeted experience. That really can move the needle on processing speed deficits.

Sandy: So I think a lot of the research out there, I mean, LearningRx has its own research, and ours is that one to one that you're describing that intensive, um, intensive remediation that really hits in that barely structured and repetitive way. Um, a lot of research out there has gone more towards like digital programs and things like that to help drive processing speed. Let's talk about that a little bit. What are the pitfalls, um, and pros for those? 

Dr. Amy: Yeah. Um, so digital cognitive training programs can be fun, right? Um, some of them have been developed with millions of dollars worth of grant funding, and when you have millions of dollars, you can make games fun, right?

They're beautiful. They're engaging. They have these gamification, uh, motivating, uh, fireworks that display on the screen when you accomplish a task. Right? And so that can be fun for kids for sure. So that is a pro to doing a computer based cognitive program. 

What a computer based cognitive training program can't do is keep you engaged when a task gets hard. So when you are faced with a difficult task that you're trying to do online and it becomes frustrating, what do you instinctively do? 

Sandy: Stop. 

Dr. Amy: You shut your laptop down. When you're working one on one with a human cognitive trainer, uh, you can't turn the human cognitive trainer off.

You get it. Okay. Exactly. That human cognitive trainer, uh, is going to push you to continue. But the beautiful part is, that human cognitive trainer can recognize frustration, pull back a little bit, let you experience some success and then push you some more, right? You get frustrated. They can tell if you're hitting fight or flight, they can pull back, let you experience some success at maybe a lesser intensity and then push you again. And so that is something that a computer program can't do. Right, a computer program cannot motivate you and manage your frustration and the way a human can. 

Sandy: I loved your picture of the neural networks and my brain is kind of sitting in there because, you know, we were talking about it in terms of handwriting, but I mean, think about it. If a parent is listening to this, I want them to really think about it and every piece of learning. Um, if you want your child to have a routine in your house, you have to build the neural networks in order for them to remember all of those things and be able to move through them smoothly and easily. If they're learning an instrument, um, you know, obviously for some individuals that's easier and for some it's harder and that's all about the neural networks, right?

That's what I'm hearing you say. Some have a greater capacity for those. Um, neural networks and have a talent and can go forward and, and pick it up with these while others have to slog through it. But there's value, um, in anything that you want to learn to build neural networks and to encourage students through that process, to help them build the processing speed in order to be able to do those tasks.

Dr. Amy: Yes. And with automaticity and with automaticity, the word we're saying is, you know, it's you do them automatically because neurons that fire together wire together. So the more you practice, the stronger those neural network connections become, and then the task becomes more automatic and for some, they just need more practice.

Sandy: Yes. Need extended practice, which is probably a little bit of the hiccup on the education side, because we're lumping, you know, 25 to 30 kids in a classroom who have all different processing speeds. And we're asking them all to learn at the same pace. So some are going to be bored to tears because it's too slow. And some are going to be barely hanging on by their fingertips because it's too fast and trying to figure out how to manage that, um, is the real. You know, if you could fundamentally break it down, I think the ultimate question in education is how do we do that? Um, and help everyone, um, achieve success.

Dr. Amy: Yeah. And, you know, there are some, um, reading curricula out there that have this built in processing speed component, right? So, whoever developed those particular curricula understood right? That you had to push the cadence, right? To, drive reading fluency, for example. And so, you know, I can remember, as a 2nd grade teacher using 1 of those curricula, where the student had to read a list of words at a particular cadence. Right? So brain, arm, nose. Right, and if they missed one, then the teacher responds with, my turn, brain, your turn, brain, and then you keep going, right, and so it wasn't, uh, we'll wait until you can read that word, right, so it really did push them, and so I don't know what happened to that amazing idea, right? Like just small pockets here and there of that type of technique in the classroom, because for the most part, we just slow it down and accommodate it. And put you’re in a lower reading group, if you can't keep up. 

Sandy: You think it's because of the frustration piece though? Just to keep students at a lower frustration point or frustration level?

Dr. Amy: It is out of care and compassion and empathy that we try to slow down in the classroom. 

Sandy: Right. But it's not doing our students any good. Yeah. Because they need, they need that. They need a little bit of that frustration in order to get the neural network to grow. Yeah. Okay. . 

Dr. Amy: Yeah. And I'm not saying don't pull back. It is super important for our kids to experience success. And if we push and push and push and push and don't give opportunities to experience mastery, then that decreases motivation. And you can't learn without motivation to learn. And so it's a delicate balance. 

Sandy: Yeah, I equate it to like, you know, when you're teaching a child to ride a bike, you're like holding on a little bit and then you have to let them go and they might fall and you got to get them back up again. Yeah, but you've got to give them that encouragement to try to work through the process. Um, but not lower the expectation too low, um, was basically what I'm hearing you say. We've got to keep the expectation high. We've just got to figure out how to scaffold it so that they're building the skill they need to be able to get to the expectation, not just work around it.

Dr. Amy: Yeah, you nailed it. 

Sandy: Okay. Should we read a break, a word from our sponsor? 

Dr. Amy: Yeah, let's read a word from our sponsor. Okay. 

Sandy: Being pulled out of class for reading help in third grade through sixth grade really hurt Joshua's confidence. He regularly referred to himself as dumb or stupid, and he often rushed through work just to get it done. His parents enrolled him in LearningRx personal brain training, something they referred to as a complete game changer. At the 7th grade parent teacher conferences, Joshua's teachers were so impressed with the improvements that they asked when and what intervention had created such drastic changes. Now, entering eighth grade, Joshua has not only been thriving academically, but also enjoying learning and even reading for pleasure.

His parents are so proud to report that Joshua was feeling much more confident that he even performed in the school musical. While your child may or may not achieve these same results, LearningRx would be happy to work with you to get answers about your child's struggles with learning. Get started at LearningRx.com or head to our show notes for links for more helpful resources. 

Dr. Amy: I love those stories. They're just so fun to hear. 

Sandy: They are. They are. And we just got back from convention, which the best part of convention is always the student of the year. Um, and they put these awesome videos together and share their stories and they always make me cry.

Dr. Amy: Yeah. Yeah. And they always make the parents cry, right? They're so happy. 

Sandy: So speaking of parents, um, I want to just give some warning signs or some things to look for, um, to help you recognize if your child might have slow processing speed. 

Dr. Amy: So, 1 thing to look for is that your child takes longer than other people do to complete tasks, um, or to respond to questions.

So they have difficulty following multi step instructions, such as, I need you to go upstairs, brush your teeth, put your pajamas on, and pick out a book for bed. Right, so that was three steps in an instruction, and so if they have difficulty following all three of those. Um, if they have difficulty keeping up with conversations, right? A lot of times kids with slow processing speed take so long to process what a person has said in a conversation that by the time they come up with a response or a way to contribute to the conversation, that conversation has moved on to another topic already. 

Do they struggle to make decisions? Is starting tasks hard? That's a sign of slow processing speed. Do they miss social cues or kind of nuances in interactions? Right? That's a sign. Um, do they need to reread information multiple times in order to understand it? Or do they need your directions repeated multiple times in order to understand it? Do they have difficulty with timed tasks or tests or assignments that are that are timed and do they appear to be easily overwhelmed by information and that is frequently because they're having a hard time processing all of it at once. So those are some red flags to look for. 

Sandy: You had some other ideas for that as well. Let's talk about, like, in general, academic performance things they can look for. Those are great at home examples. 

Dr. Amy: Yeah, so academic performance would be that they read less fluently than their same age peers, that they have difficulty comprehending what they read. So they're reading comprehension is low. Um, let me say 1st, that you can have slow processing speed and still be very intelligent. It just takes longer to do something accurately. So let's say you have on a test, a math fluency test, let's say that all of the questions that they can accomplish during the 60 second time limit are answered correctly, but they just don't answer very many. That would be, hey, they understand the concept. They understand how to solve the problem. They're just really slow in doing it. 

Are they late turning in assignments consistently? Are they not able to finish classwork in the same amount of time that their peers can finish their classwork? Are they constantly asking for more time?

Are they asking the teacher to repeat instructions? Right, because they only caught the 1st part and they were still processing that. So they don't know, oh, what was I supposed to do next? Does it take them longer to read chapter books? And sometimes these are reading struggles, right? But when it, when the difference is, um, do they know how to decode words versus does it take them longer to decode words? So that's the difference that we would want to look for. Do they know how to do the math problem? It just takes them longer to do the math problem. Those are some red flags. 

Sandy: Okay, so if a parent has some concerns, um, what would your advice be to parents? Where should they start? Um, to kind of get the answers that they need? 

Dr. Amy: Yeah, I always recommend starting with testing, right? We get a really nice snapshot of processing speed and other cognitive skills, right, when we can assess those directly. Um, so it's 1 thing to say, hey, my kid is slower in the classroom than I think he should be, but it's another thing to go Oh, my kids in the 25th percentile when tested on a processing speed test. And so that's a really valuable data point, a really valuable piece of information that parents need to see in order to make a decision on what they should do next. 

Sandy: Right, so decisions would be things like maybe approaching their school, um, to get a 504 IEP, right? Um, if they want to remediate it, we're, that's pretty much our lane. Um, what would they need to look for in a program that would help them remediate? 

Dr. Amy: Yeah, so that's, you know, that's what we do. That's what my research is focused on. And so they can go to LearningRx.com and click on find a center.

And, um, that's how they can get started with getting an assessment, right? So, they would talk to the LearningRx center closest to them and they would schedule an assessment, and then their center director would then go over those results and then you would know. Right? And so let's say that the answer is not low processing speed, right? Their processing speed seems fine. Then it allows you to look in other areas to go, okay, if processing speed is fine, did they not learn this information well, the first time, right? So maybe they need a tutor instead, right? But it's information that they need to know so that they know which direction to go in.

Sandy: Um, brain training is kind of a buzzword out there in the Internet, What should parents avoid when they're looking for a remediation? 

Dr. Amy: Yeah, I love that question. Um, so it comes down to research. So anyone can get on the Internet and say that they do something that they do, right? Anybody can, you know, say we fix brains.

We save brains, we train, right? Um, but do they have the research to back up what they do? And so it's very important to ask if that intervention has peer reviewed research, clinical research specifically on that program. So there are programs out there that will quote other people's research and say, hey, you know, cognitive training works.

Look at all these studies on cognitive training. But if it isn't a study on their program, then that's a red flag. So you actually want to ask for research on that program that you're considering putting your child in or yourself in for that matter. Um, you know, LearningRx, is based on 30 years of research.

Since 2015, there are 17 peer reviewed published studies on the LearningRx methodology--assessment and intervention. And so, we stand behind what we do, because our research has been validated. 

Sandy: That's a really great point. So, is there anything, Amy, that you haven't talked about with processing speed that you want to leave our listeners with today? We've kind of given them a full fire hose, I think, of information. 

Dr. Amy: Yeah. I think I just want to leave our listeners with hope. Right, it can be really frustrating to have slow processing speed. It can impact self esteem and self confidence. It can have far reaching effects, right? Not just in the classroom, but in relationships, in your ability to hold conversations, safety.

Like you mentioned Sandy, you know, driving, navigating. You know, is it safe to cross the street or not quickly enough to be able to take all of the stimulus that you're, you know, seeing in your environment and act on it in a safe way. So, it can have far reaching impacts when we do have low processing speed, but this is a message of hope. Processing speed can be remediated with targeted intense, validated methods.

And so just know that, you know, you're not alone. That's what we do. Like, this is what we do to help support kids and adults who are struggling with this and other cognitive skill deficits. And we're super passionate about it all the time, you know, our children have benefited. We have benefited, right? Like this isn't something that we just talk about. I mean, we've lived this ourselves.

Sandy: Exactly. We have some free resources for our listeners. Do you want to share that? 

Dr. Amy: Yeah, we absolutely do. So if you want to test out what cognitive skills training is, we have a free game pack. We'll put that in our show notes.

Um, I think that's six different training tasks, uh, that you can try. We'll also put a link to download the PDF version of Unlock the Einstein Inside, which was the book written by Dr. Ken Gibson and Kim Hanson. Dr. Gibson created LearningRx and so that book really talks about all of these different cognitive skills that we've been talking about in this series and how they work together for thinking and learning.

And so we'll put a link to that in the show notes as well. And if you want more information, if you want to get started with an assessment, you can visit learning Rx dot com and click find a center. You can call 1 866 BRAIN 01 to talk to someone about how to get started and we'll put our links to all of that in the show notes to make that easy for you, too.

Sandy: Exactly. If you want to see examples of what cognitive training looks like, you can always follow me. I'm on Tik TOK @the brain trainer lady. Um, I like to kind of share what it is that we do in a really tangible way. So, if you just want to see what all the fuss is about, you can kind of join us there. Uh, we talk a lot about these topics, in general on our Brainy Moms Tik Tok account as well. 

Dr. Amy: So awesome. If you like our show, we would love it if you would leave us a five star rating and review on Apple podcasts. Please follow us. We are on, um, all the social media platforms @ The brainy moms. So do that now, so that we can reach more smart parents like you, and this is all the smart stuff we have for you today, so we're going to catch you next time. 

Sandy: Have a great week.