Processing Speed Deficit: An Often Overlooked Condition
By Nicholas Bamonte, B.A. Psychology
Speed is a highly valued quality among people, to the point where other qualities are often taken for granted. When measuring the work between different people or machines, most will typically measure the time it took to get a task done. The best workers turn their work in ahead of time, and the best machines do their job faster than the competition. It may be tempting to blame this on our modern world and a culture of instant gratification, but I think if we were to be honest with ourselves, we’d find that it’s always been there. Why else would we have fables like “The Tortoise and the Hare” if not to remind us of the foolishness of that instinctual assumption? This need for speed seems to be at least somewhat hardwired into all of us, and that’s why it can hurt when you’re not so fast.
Processing speed deficit is a deceptively simple condition, at least conceptually. It means that there is a deficit or deficiency in the speed that information is processed. This doesn’t necessarily affect information processing capability. Or in other words, intelligence. This deficit doesn’tt make a person incapable, it just increases the amount of time it takes to process information. The thing is, every function of the brain, from taking in information from the senses to directing the body to react in certain ways, can be considered a form of information processing. So many basic abilities can be affected by slow processing speed: reading, writing, mathematics, communication, picking up social cues, reaction speed, encoding information into working and long-term memory, etc., and yet, it is not considered a learning disorder in and of itself. It may be considered an aspect of other disorders, such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder, or anxiety disorder, but it’s not recognized as an individual diagnosis, even if it’s the component that many struggle with the most.
“It can be hard to recognize and evaluate your processing speed with only your own perception. When no one else really seems to recognize or agree to what degree processing speed deficit even really exists, it becomes very easy for a little voice to form, whispering poisonous words in your ear, that it’s not real and that you’re just not trying hard enough.”
That voice is familiar to me.
My name is Nicholas Bamonte, and I have a processing speed deficit. It’s been hard on me in a myriad of ways. Many of the euphemisms and even official medical terminology for stupidity and mental impairments directly descend from the idea of the brain being “slow”. “Slow-in-the-mind”, “mental retardation”, “developmental delay”, this association between speed and competency is hard to escape, because, to a degree, it’s true. It is well understood that as a person masters a skill, they become faster and more accurate at it. Once accuracy reaches as close to 100% as possible, then speed becomes the only measure of improvement. Even if you consistently get good grades, if you find yourself getting further behind the teacher when taking notes and staying up later to finish homework, it can be hard not to feel stupid.
Whenever I’d start to feel down about my difficulties, or be reluctant to accept accommodations, my mother would compare it to expecting a person with a broken leg to complete a marathon. The problem is that it’s easy to demonstrate how a person with a broken leg cannot walk. Processing speed deficit is a little more complicated. There is no section of the brain responsible for processing information; the entire brain is dedicated to processing various types of information. The deficit comes from problems throughout the nervous system, and it is rarely uniform.
Often a processing speed deficit will only affect certain tasks, such as the motor skills used in handwriting, leaving other tasks unaffected, such as speech or the motor skills in typing. In this way, the line between what can and cannot be reasonably expected is much blurrier. A person with a broken leg may be able to finish a marathon, but the pain will be obvious. It’s far easier to assume the problems with processing speed can be overcome with just a bit more effort, that if you tried a little harder to be faster, you could do it.
I grew up in a supportive environment, where people recognized my disability and accepted me, but those toxic words and expectations still came. They came from myself. Humans are social creatures by nature; therefore, it is in our nature to compare ourselves to others. And as was established earlier, we tend to conflate speed with capability. I grew up often feeling inferior to those around me. Even if I was a top student or consistently aced tests and was congratulated for it, in my mind, it became something to be expected, rather than something to celebrate. Further compounding that, I was tested and diagnosed young. While this is usually ideal, as early intervention minimizes frustrations and setbacks, I never actually remembered the experience or having the results explained to me. My knowledge of my own condition was ultimately second-hand knowledge, reported to me by my mother. In this way, there was always an element of doubt that I couldn’t escape. The fact that I always had to explain what a processing speed deficit was to people and that I knew of no one else who openly claimed to have it only reinforced that doubt. Did my mother misremember the results? Perhaps I was simply having an off day when I was being tested, and it resulted in a false positive? Maybe I just was not trying hard enough to be fast when I was tested?
“It’s my sincere hope that processing speed deficits can enter the public consciousness in the same way that dyslexia and ADHD have. I hope that kids after me will not have to feel pressured to prove that they have a real disorder, if only to themselves.”
About the author
Nicholas Bamonte is a Different Brains team member. His formal diagnoses are dyslexia and ADHD, though the aspect of neurodiversity he’s struggled with the most is slow processing speed. A graduate of FIU with a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology, Nicholas hopes to assist the millions of people who struggle with learning differences and the difficulties that come with living in a world not designed with their particular brains in mind.
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