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What does two standard devations mean?

Submitted by an LD OnLine user on

My son is going to be evaluated for specfic learning Disability and his teacher said he has to show a two standard deviation of discrepancy between intelligence and achievement.She said this is hard to do in 2nd grade but believes he will she said he seems very bright but cant distinguish similar words and letters numberstoo.He already had a speech evaluation (already recieves therapy for past 3 years) and his listening comprehension is of a 15 year old and he is only 8.

Submitted by Anonymous on Fri, 04/06/2001 - 11:03 PM

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A standard deviation is usually 15 points. Two standard deviation would be 30 points. If the child’s IQ was 110 and he scored a 80 Standard Score on Math Calculation this would be 110 - 80 = 30 points and two standard deviations.
So you would have to look at Standard Scores and compare them to IQ scores.

Helen

Submitted by Anonymous on Sat, 04/07/2001 - 1:08 AM

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It has both a cognitive part (IQ) and ability part (acheivement).

What are the issues your child has?

Knowing this the people on the board can suggests what tests to give.

Helen

Submitted by Anonymous on Sat, 04/07/2001 - 11:51 AM

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Beyond the numbers that two standard deviations represent, two standard deviations has another significance in that two standard deviations is considered to be statistically signficant. Everyone is allowed one standard deviation…but two standard deviations we believe has meaning in this matter and another. Two standard deviations off “the norm” we believe can’t be explained away and thus is thought to tell us something is going on - whether we’re testing a child for learning differences or whether we’re taking a poll on people’s favorite political candidate.

When the numbers show us two standard deviations off the norm, the “science” of statistics then tells us to believe we’ve found the statistical “truth” and the differences the test or poll are showing us are thought to be real.

Submitted by Anonymous on Sat, 04/07/2001 - 1:02 PM

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My son confuses similar words and letters,reverses alot of letters when writing alot of mirror image ,his sight vocabulary is behind ,his oral and silent reading skills are declining,spelling is way off.He also has troules in fine,gross,and visual motor corrdination.He has had worked modified for the most of this year and he is still stuggiling with written work.He does some work orally and one on one with a tutor.We have a Iep meeting in 2 weeks.The school started testing him this past week.The school psycologist did mention to me yesteday that he has the abiliy to do work way above his age esspecially in math.And he feels it is a visual perception problem.I already knew this he went to vision therapy for 8 months last year and the dr. said it is more of a processing promblem and he dont see anything in this therapy helping much .He cant catch a ball very well even bigger ball..He does get oneon one OT for 45 minsa week broken down in 3 days.His OT has not seen much improvement eiether he says it seems he getting somewhere with him then boom it is right back where we started.And my son has only missed 1 1/2 days due to dr. apptiontment (he is ADHD) and we needed to change meds.

Submitted by Anonymous on Sat, 04/07/2001 - 3:58 PM

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Make sure he is tested for dysgraphia go to the following site for information on assessment and I’ve listed some tests from there that you would want to have done.
http://www.margaretkay.com/Dysgraphia.htm
Developmental Test of Visual-Motor Integration
Bender-Gestalt
Jordan Left-Right Reversal Test
TOWL-3 (Test of Written Language)

It sounds like you need to get him to someone who can put all the pieces together and that might be a Pediatric Neuropsychologist.
To to site below of information on why go to a Pediatric Neuropsychologist.

http://www.neuropsychologycentral.com/interface/content/resources/resources_interface_frameset.html

Helen

Submitted by Anonymous on Mon, 04/09/2001 - 10:36 PM

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The most common problems (though not the only o ne)behind lags in reading and spelling have to do with how kids process the *sounds* of words, not what they look like on the page. ASk them (sped teacher, head of sped dept at the school or district) to include a test of phonemic awareness in their testing. Hopefully they will say of course, they do anyway… but maybe not. It’s a little less likely that that’s his issue, since his listening comp. is so good — but some kids are bright enough to figure out the *meaning* of what people say perfectly well, without knowing the details of the sounds of the words that you need to tell vacation from vaccination and lean from learn.
Do some homework in the “reading” section in LD In Depth on this site.
Let the kid know you’re not trying to see whether or not he has some horrible defect… you’re trying to pinpoint exactly where he needs more work & help because you *know* he’s working hard and you *know* he’s smart. So the testing is mainly to try to help the adults figure out what to do… it’s not a test for him to “pass” or “fail.” (Kids can get hugely stressed about the things…) So his job is to show the tester what he knows as best as he can… (so if he’s impulsive, tell him to slow down & think before he spits out an answer… the tester is not going to be like his teacher and let him know when he’s right or wrong. Some kids who have learned to rely on that can really have trouble when a tester is doing the job right and not giving ‘em clues when they start to give an answer…)
And get all those results. You can learn a lot from ‘em (we’ll help :)).
jack wrote:
>
> My son is going to be evaluated for specfic learning
> Disability and his teacher said he has to show a two standard
> deviation of discrepancy between intelligence and
> achievement.She said this is hard to do in 2nd grade but
> believes he will she said he seems very bright but cant
> distinguish similar words and letters numberstoo.He already
> had a speech evaluation (already recieves therapy for past 3
> years) and his listening comprehension is of a 15 year old
> and he is only 8.

Submitted by Anonymous on Mon, 04/09/2001 - 10:53 PM

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Well phonics is one area where he needs help.His teacher said he does not understand phonemic relationships.I did find out today that he did qualify to be classified as Specific Learning Disability instead of Speech like he has for the past 3 years.I will know more of what services he will be recieving next week when we have a IEP meeting.The school psycologist said he is very smart but not working to his ability.He mentioned thathis IQ is way over 130.I have papers that say he has a severs discrepancy between achievement and ability that cannot be corrected without sp.ed. and related services in the following areas written expression, basic reading skills,reading comprehension,ans math calculation.The school psycologist said he did fine with the testing but he knew that my son was trying to figure him out too.We did not let him know this was going to take place.

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