Characteristics of child psychiatric outpatients with slow processing speed and potential mechanisms of academic impact

While slow processing speed (PS) is well documented in youth with ADHD, growing evidence suggests that this difficulty affects children with other neuropsychiatric conditions. Clarifying the relationship between slow PS and different forms of psychopathology is important clinically, given the potential impact of PS on academic functioning, and conceptually. In 751 youth, ages 6–21, consecutively referred for neuropsychiatric evaluation, we examined the association between slow PS (i.e., Wechsler PS Index