Slow Processing Speed

Today I am going to share a little something new. Well, maybe not exactly new. Along our journey, as the AoA kids have grown and matured, we have met with new challenges. My parents and I knew that Little AoA had some learning and processing difficulties from a very young age. She was born four weeks early, and needed some help breathing when she was born.

As she has grown, this delay presented as verbal apraxia and large motor challenges. She could not keep up with kids her age. Along the way, we found that she had Hypothyroidism, which mainly presented as severe fatigue. We watched and waited, as her schooling progressed. She was able to learn to read, but math was a different story.

We tried and tried to help her with math, but for some reason, it just wouldn’t stick. Some thorough testing revealed that her overall cognitive functioning is in the borderline range (low 70’s), and her processing speed is slower than typical kids her age.

Here is some information I found about the challenges faced by kids who have slow processing speed:

https://www.understood.org/en/learning-attention-issues/child-learning-disabilities/information-processing-issues/a-day-in-the-life-of-a-child-with-slow-processing-speed

The day explained in the timeline is very familiar. One thing that has helped us, is having routines and limited choices. We start preparing for things far ahead of time in order to have time to fully process.

Confidence building and risk taking has been a great area of focus for us recently. Little AoA is extremely hesitant about new things. It is taking an army of Angels to lift her up across all settings!

She is the youngest of my four children…born when I was 42 years old. I knew when she came along, that my time of “empty nesting” would be a long time coming. I have enjoyed being an older mother in ways I couldn’t have imagined.

~AoA