Why is my child always so slow at everything?
Why is my child always so slow at everything?
As a parent, I remember waiting outside the portacabins that housed the overspill from years 4 to 6. The shrubbery that enveloped the cabins was never tall enough to provide shade from the heat. One summer, a quiet then 8-year-old Alex ate a berry from those shrubs and got a nasty bout of food poisoning - the offending shrubbery was duly chopped down. The chopping came after the parents' email about the incident; before that, an ambulance took Alex, in an emergency, to the local hospital. Alex had her day of fame. This rather self-effacing, mousey-haired girl was the talk of the school.
Meanwhile, every vestige of hope of finding shade vanished for waiting parents as the school had the offending plant matter chopped down.
“My little one, in contrast, was ten days late, and this business of me ‘waiting,’ was our legacy”
Those days of waiting in the hope my child would soon emerge from the said cabin, but she never was the first one, nor the second. I had my bets on Dan being the first little human to pop his head out of the cabin, coat in mid-flow of being put on. Efficient Dan: it was no surprise Dan was the older of the twins by two and a half minutes.
My little one, in contrast, was ten days late, and this business of me ‘waiting,’ was our legacy. My daughter was always the last mini human to trickle out of that grey, characterless building.
Our walk to the car was always the same; I had questions for her: what were the three best things that happened today? She would explain the best things she had learnt about or the ongoing saga of Beyonce and the deputy head teacher, Mr B.
But in those junior years, it was always about "how slow can she go!" My beautiful girl was a perpetual daydreamer.
In stark contrast, secondary school was radically different, up at six and out the door by seven, and there was nothing slow there. As an adult, her education and training have changed her radically into an efficient, goal-oriented individual, but I remember those early years with some fondness.
What are the common traits of poor academic performance?
It makes us wonder why some individuals are slower than others. It did not affect my child long term, but it does affect many detrimentally, prohibiting them from learning easily. As a therapist, I've seen my share of Educational Psychologist Reports, abbreviated to 'Ed Psych
Report'. Processing speed is one of the things professionals check when testing for neurodivergent conditions.If your child is diagnosed with dyslexia, they will generally have three characteristics typical of most dyslexic children.
- Phonological difficulties
- Weak working memory
- Poor processing speed
These conditions are not exclusive to children with dyslexia. They can exist alone or as part of other types of neurodivergence, such as DCD, ADHD, Auditory Processing Disorder or Dyscalculia, to name but a few. However, this combined trio often exists in children with weak academic performance. And slowness is a significant factor that exacerbates the overall difficulties.
“Delayed gross motor control impacts the next developmental stage of fine motor control”
How do these traits appear in children?
Phonological difficulties. Children who can't process sounds may have problems associating sounds with letter symbols. They may know the sounds but cannot blend them into words. Later down the line, there will be spelling problems, which continue to be an area of challenge through education and beyond.
Working memory. If children can't hold information in mind when processing thoughts, they will be unable to remember what they need to do, follow through on what they learn, or carry out tasks. Reading comprehension and mental arithmetic are some of the challenges these individuals face.
Poor processing. Poor processing is a standalone problem with multiple root causes, often physiological. Due to motor difficulties, weak processing can be due to delayed signals coming from particular body parts and the brain region. Poor processing is an area that affects learning, retaining and recalling.
“This timing is known as temporal processing. Measuring microseconds and milliseconds to hours is done by the brain’s”
What happens when the brain has delayed information?
- When auditory information going to the brain is slow, the outcome is a child who appears not to hear when spoken to or offers an understandably delayed response. It also means when they are learning to read, they can't process the sounds fast enough to blend them - hence difficulties in learning phonics.
- When visual processing is slow, the eyes do not move easily when doing various visual tasks - compensation includes moving the head when reading, which can be tiring.
- Delayed gross motor control impacts the next developmental stage of fine motor control, resulting in slow handwriting or reading speed.
How to help those with weak or delayed processing speed?
Interactive Metronome® (IM) is a physical product connected to a sensitive monitoring device. The product helps monitor the timing of movement, and the device tracks the measurements (to a millisecond precision), challenging the student to be more accurate.
Our brain's internal clock and Interactive Metronome® (IM)
Poor processing speed affects many children, and finding the right tools to help can change a child's trajectory.
Interactive Metronome® (IM) helps the brain keep to its internal timing. This timing is known as temporal processing. Measuring microseconds and milliseconds to hours is done by the brain's temporal processing.
Temporal processing is responsible for detecting where a sound is coming from as sound hits one ear microseconds before the other, for waking up and putting to sleep our brain every 12 hours or so, and for focusing attention, reading comprehension, remembering information, processing speech, motor coordination, and along with other activities.
Interactive Metronome analyses the timing in milliseconds of how accurately a child can react to a constant beat. With carefully adaptive lessons, the child slowly increases speed, and the delays decrease. Increasing temporal processing speed impacts better communication between the regions in the brain.
Interactive Metronome® game-like auditory-visual platform engages the child and provides constant feedback at the millisecond level to promote synchronised timing in the brain.
Training your child's brain is possible - with the right tools, things can improve.
Your child need not suffer from poor processing speed. Raviv Practice London is committed to using evidence-based solutions that offer effective solutions.
Interactive Metronome® has over 300 research papers, and I am happy to forward the most relevant to your situation. Drop me an email at hello@ravivpracitcelondon.co.uk
Dyslexia? Dyspraxia? ADHD? ASD? Speech & Language? Developmental Delay? Anxiety?
Is every school day a struggle? As a parent, you may feel exhausted and on this journey alone. Each year you see the gap getting wider. You need to do something - change the approach, help your child learn for themselves, find a way to turn this around - to help while you can - do this NOW. the first step is free.
About the Author
Usha Patel is a Neurocognitive Therapist and Director at Raviv Practice London. Parents searching to help their suspected/neurodiverse child can get evidence-based solutions with results in as little as 8 weeks. Those in search of jargon-free help can get started straight away.
