Brief report: speed of information processing in children with insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus

OBJECTIVE: To determine whether children with insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (IDDM) process information more slowly than children who do not have diabetes. METHODS: We tested 31 children with early onset and longer duration of IDDM, 35 with later onset and briefer duration of IDDM, and 36 comparison children without diabetes. They were administered five tasks requiring rapid responding that assessed a range of cognitive processes. RESULTS: On most tasks, children in the three groups were quite similar in the accuracy and speed of performance. Furthermore, for children in the diabetic groups, disease-related variables were unrelated to accuracy and speed of performance. CONCLUSIONS: The results suggest that children with IDDM do not have a pervasive deficit in speed of information processing, although more circumscribed deficits in processing speed are possible.