Processing Speed Difficulties

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School support section:

What are processing speed diffculties?
Advice for the classroom
School issues
Books and articles
Programmes, games & software
Useful addresses & websites

Home support section:

What are processing speed diffculties?
How will this affect my child?
How can I help?
Where can I find out more?

School support:

What are processing speed difficulties ?

These are difficulties experienced by a pupil in reading or writing at the speed that might be expected. The quality of a pupil’s writing or reading may be at the expected level – but for these children, cognitive, perceptual and/or motor factors means that their processing is unduly slow and laborious.

Advice for the classroom:

Allow extra time for timed tasks, specially in assessments and examinations.

Remember that copying, from the board or a textbook, may take longer than expected.

Written presentation may be the pupil’s weakest way of showing understanding, so be ready to use other ways – visual, role play, speech.

Let the pupil know you are aware of his/her difficulty, and that you are sympathetic – but that you have high expectations.

Be specially generous with praise and cautious with criticism. Praise can be a natural motivator as long as the pupil feels the praise is genuine and deserved. It is important to let the pupil know why he/she is being praised rather than just to provide praise. In a behavioural reward system with extrinsic rewards such as stickers or points, the pupil can easily see why he/she is being praised. This can be an effective motivator, as long as the rewards are meaningful and appropriate.

School issues

Ensure that all the pupil’s teachers know about the difficulty and understand its implications. Consider a request to examination boards for extra time, if appropriate and required.

Books & articles:

British Dyslexia Association, the Dyslexia Handbook, produced annually by the BDA, contains many short articles on dyslexia and associated difficulties, details of providers of resources and of British Dyslexia Association branches throughout Britain and Europe.

Given, Barbara, and Reid, Gavin (1999) Learning Styles: A Guide for Teachers and Parents (Red Rose Publications) – provides a critical analysis of learning styles and insights into the five learning systems (emotional, social, cognitive, physical, and reflective) and practical applications of an observational checklist for identifying individual learning styles. This can be helpful in identifying appropriate learning styles for children with attention difficulties, and appropriate learning environments.

Hawley, G. (2002) SpLD Resources: a guide to the help available to parents of children with special needs – a useful 80-page compendium of information covering difficulties with reading and writing (dyslexia), numeracy (dyscalculia), handwriting (dyslexia), developmental coordination (dyspraxia), language impairment, autism and ‘attention deficit disorder’. Contains details of the national organisations that address it, together with a list of books, pamphlets and websites. The guide costs £4.50, including p & p, from Gillian Hawley (cheques to Gillian Hawley SpLD account), The Old Bakery, Radwinter Road, Ashton, Essex CB10 2ET (tel: 01799 584424). Readers in East Anglia, Rutland, Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire receive a free 30-page supplement listing more than 150 special needs teachers in the district.

Hong, C. S., Gabriel, H. and St John, C. (1996) Sensory Motor Activities for Early Development (Winslow).

Moore, Kate (2000) Making Your Secondary Classroom Dyslexia-friendly (Desktop Publications) – this short A4 illustrated booklet provides some brief indication on aspects such as timetables, colour coding, giving instructions, making worksheets and other key aspects of a secondary classroom which can be challenging for pupils with dyslexic difficulties. There are also five photocopiable pages of memory activities for pupils, including how to remember months of the year and days of the week.

Reid, Gavin (2003) Dyslexia: A Practitioner’s Guide (Wiley, 3rd edition).

Reid, Gavin (2004) Dyslexia: A Complete Guide for Parents (Wiley).

Samuels, S. J. (1987) ‘Information processing abilities and reading’, Journal of Learning Disabilities, 20, 1, 18–22.

Williams, D. (1998) Early Visual Skills (Winslow).

Programmes, Games and Software

Before Alpha: Learning Games for the Under Fives – this is a programme of learning games developed by Bev Hornsby (1996, Souvenir Press) which can be used with children under five. The games are in a series of structured stages, are multi-sensory and aim to foster language development and other pre-reading skills such as visual and auditory perception and discrimination, fine motor control, spatial relationships, knowledge of colour, number and directions.

Talking word processors such as Textease (www.textease.com) and Clicker4 (www.cricksoft.com)

Useful addresses & websites:

Accelerated learning and brain gym – www.zoomlearning.co.uk

British Dyslexia Association (BDA), 98 London Road, Reading, Berkshire, RG1 5AU; tel: 0118 966 2677; email: admin@bda-dyslexia.demon.co.uk; website: www.bda-dyslexia.org.uk

Computer games can be useful, as some of these can help with processing speed utilising both visual and auditory modalities – sources include: KCS – Tools for the Computer Enabled, Freepost, Southampton SO17 1YA; tel: 0123 80584314; fax: 0123 80584320; email: info@keytools.com

Becta (British Educational Communications and Technology Agency), Milburn Hill Road, Science Park, Coventry CV4 7JJ; tel: 024 7641 6994; fax: 024 7641 1418; email: becta@becta.org.uk;
website: www.becta.org.uk

Crick Software, website: www.cricksoft.com/uk

Crossbow Education, 41 Sawpit Lane, Brocton, Stafford ST17 0TE; tel: 01785 660902; website: www.crossboweducation.com – games for learning.

Design Concept, 30 South Oswald Road, Edinburgh EH9 2HG; tel: 0131 668 2000.

Desktop Publications, 54 Railway Street, Barnetby-le-wold, North Lincolnshire DN38 6DQ; tel: 01652 688781; fax: 01652 688850, website: www.desktoppublications.co.uk

Dyslexia Institute, Head Office and National Training and Resource Centre, Park House, Wick Road, Egham, Surrey TW20 0HH; tel: 01784 222300; fax: 01784 222333; email: info@dyslexia-inst.org.uk; website: www.dyslexia-inst.org.uk

Dyslexia Research Trust, website: www.dyslexic.org.uk – a detailed site giving current research, newsletter, conferences and publications, upcoming talks and lectures.

Dyslexia UK charity, website: www.dyslexia.uk.com – a knowledge site providing information and guidance on all topics relating to dyslexia.

Dyspraxia Foundation, 8 West Alley, Hitchin, Hertfordshire, SG5 1EG; tel: 01462 454986; website: www.dyspraxiafoundation.org.uk

iANSYST Ltd, Fen House, 72 Fen Road, Cambridge CB4 1UN; tel: 01223 420101; fax: 01223 426644; websites: www.dyslexic.com

Magic Key Books – www.magickeys.com

National Association of Special Educational Needs (NASEN), Nasen House, 4-5 Amber Business Village, Amber Close, Amington, Tamworth B77 4RP; tel: 01827 311500; fax: 01827 313005; email: welcome@nasen.org.uk ; website: www.nasen.org.uk

Office for Advice, Assistance, Support and Information on Special Needs (OAASIS), Brock House, Grigg Lane, Brockenhurst, Hants SO42 7RE; helpline tel: 09068 633201; website: www.oaasis.co.uk – an advice, training and resource centre for parents and professionals.

Professional Association of Teachers of Students with Specific Learning Difficulties (Patoss), website: www.patoss-dyslexia.org

REM, Great Western House, Langport, Somerset TA10 9YU; tel: 01458 254750; fax: 01458 254751; website: www.r-e-m.co.uk

Scientific Learning Corporation Fast ForWord – www.scilearn.com

SEMERC software publishers, website: www.blackcatsoftware.com

SENCO Support Resources – Over 300 Practical Tips: ideas for resources and websites, by Fil Came (2001), available from Learning Works, 9 Barrow Close, Marlborough, Wiltshire SN8 2YY;
email: info@learning-works.org.uk; website: www.learning-works.org.uk

SpLD Resources, www.dyslexia.org.uk hosts a guide to the help available to parents of children with special needs – a useful compendium of information covering difficulties with reading and writing (dyslexia), numeracy (dyscalculia), handwriting (dyslexia), developmental coordination (dyspraxia), language impairment, autism and ‘attention deficit disorder’. Lists details of the national organisations that address a range of SEN needs, together with a list of books and pamphlets.

www.dyslexics.org.uk – highly recommended coverage of things that can be done at home.

www.gavinreid.co.uk – contains over 40 links and articles on dyslexia and details of publications.

www.advancedbrain.com

www.bda-dyslexia.org.uk

www.dyslexiaa2z.com

www.ldonline.org

www.xavier.bangor.ac.uk

Home support:

What are processing speed difficulties?

These are difficulties experienced by a pupil in reading or writing at the speed that might be expected. The quality of a child’s writing or reading may be at the expected level – but for these children, cognitive, perceptual and/or motor factors means that their processing is unduly slow and laborious.

How will this affect my child?

Reading and writing may be accurate enough, but it takes longer, and is a little more effortful.

Written work often takes significantly longer – the work may be of a high standard, but it takes a disproportionately long time to produce it.

How can I help?

Allow plenty time to do homework – try to break the homework time into several shorter sessions, with rest in between.

Computer games can be useful, as some of these can help with processing speed utilising both visual and auditory modalities.

The computer software from TextHelp Systems Ltd (Enkalon Business Centre, 25 Randalstown Road, Antrim BT41 4LJ, Northern Ireland; tel: + 44 1849 428 105; fax:. +44 1849 428 574; email: info@texthelp.com, www.texthelp.com) can assist in the writing of essays and with grammar and spelling.

Where can I find out more?

Accelerated learning and brain gym – www.zoomlearning.co.uk

Dyslexia: A Complete Guide for Parents by Gavin Reid (2004) (Wiley).

www.bda-dyslexia.org.uk

www.dyslexiaa2z.com

Becta (British Educational Communications and Technology Agency), Milburn Hill Road, Science Park, Coventry CV4 7JJ; tel: 024 7641 6994; fax: 024 7641 1418;
email: becta@becta.org.uk; website: www.becta.org.uk

KCS – Tools for the Computer Enabled, Freepost, Southampton SO17 1YA; tel: 023 8058 4314; fax: 0238058 4320; email: info@keytools.com

National Council for Educational Technology (NCET), Milburn Hill Road, Science Park, Coventry CV4 7JJ; tel: 01203 416994; fax: 01203 411418; email: enquiry_desk@ncet.org.uk