today's meeting

[wrog]

Good News

the Mercer Island school district now officially agrees that Philip is "developmentally delayed" and hence eligible for services, and evidently sufficiently so to be eligible for the summer program, too. If the doctor next month comes back with a diagnosis of genuine Autism^TM, that'll be worth another hour or so each day.

Bad News

see above.

In all categories except for the motor stuff he's apparently <= -2σ (on the various standardized tests . . . at least in the cases where it was even possible to get any kind of score), and even for the motor stuff where he's only about -0.5σ there are still apparently things he should know how to do by now that he doesn't, e.g., jump up and down with both feet or throwing stuff --- of course, his dad never learned how to throw either (5th percentile in softball throw on the President's Physical Fitness test; go me!), but anyway...

Comments

[firni.livejournal.com]

That jump up and down crap is just that...crap. They tested Conor along those lines, too. What they SHOULD be testing is "how fast can this kid pick a lock?" because then our kids would test ahead of the curve.

[greyaenigma.livejournal.com]

What does "<= -2σ", etc mean?

[firni.livejournal.com]

Along the lines of "around two standard deviations below the mean", two standard deviations being 96%, and after that I forget my statistics classes.

[greyaenigma.livejournal.com]

"All this information is yours, except the statistics, attempt no comprehension there." Check.

[firni.livejournal.com]

I look at things like this, then do the happy dance that I only MINORED in statistics.

That's right

[vivasuperstar.livejournal.com]

Or... how fast can the child put a DVD or a VHS cassette in the proper player? how fast can s/he unbuckle self from highchair or booster seat?

[wrog]

School District Person:
  "Yeah standard deviations. See ..." (pulls out picture of bell curve)

Emma:
  "Actually, Roger majored in math."

SDP:
  "Oh cool. Maybe you can explain it to us then."

Roger [...trying to dredge up what he can remember about the Central Limit Theorem, then deciding this might not be such a good idea...]:
  "blgh"

We'll also carefully leave out the small matter that Roger was an algebraic topology wonk who never had a statistics course in his life

Oh, and Emma was also a math major at one point, but never mind that.

Re: That's right

[wrog]

He hasn't figured out unbuckling yet. Then again, the 5-point harness we put him in is pretty tricky. And once we do unsnap the (two) buckles, he can slip out pretty quickly (which is a rather interesting topology problem in and of itself...).

[emmacrew.livejournal.com]

Well, I mostly said that to forestall them from explaining what a standard deviation is (since that wasn't your question) and instead explain where the numbers come from (since that was, or so I thought).

[artname.livejournal.com]

5th percentile in softball throw on the President's Physical Fitness test

That's okay, That's about where the president usually scores on opening day ..