‘Reportedly’

A few weeks ago, the Monster had his every-so-often appointment with the neuropsychologist.  We got the report this week, and the wife sent it on to my email account for me to read.

Aside from my want to quote The Princess Bride at it… the report didn’t tell us anything that we didn’t already know.

But that’s where I have my chuckle at the whole thing, the aspect of the use of some of the verbiage.  The document was written so that you don’t have to be a doctor to understand it, and I appreciate it.  It reaffirms the diagnosis of ASD as well as adding in  Unspecified Disruptive, Impulse Control, and Conduct Disorder (what they used to call Disruptive Behavior Disorder, NOS).

The word ‘reportedly’ is used 20 times in the document, sometimes as much as three times in a single paragraph, and in several places, it’s inappropriately used.  (Webster’s dictionary defines ‘reportedly’ as “according to what some say (used to express the speaker’s belief that the information given is not necessarily true)” and while the doctor is trying to express that the data was provided by my wife, rather than through documentation, it just leads to wording that’s humorous.)  “Reportedly”, he is in first grade.  “Reportedly”, he is seeing a developmental pediatrician at KKI.  “Reportedly”, he is wearing underwear during the day.

Um… no.  Those are actual facts.  He is in the first grade, which can be verified easily through information provided.  He is seeing a developmental pediatrician, which should have been information readily available to the neuropsych (because the neuropsych also works for KKI).  He does wear underwear during the day, which would have been readily evident to them if they’d looked in his pants.

Now, aside from my laughing about choice of wording in the report… the report is useful to us.  It reinforces what all of the city-performed assessments said last year before the attempt to move him to his current school, in that he really should be in a more intensively-therapeutic environment – smaller class sizes, more intervention, and a place where he can concentrate on the language skills that he’s lacking.  As we’re coming up on another IEP rewrite in about 2 weeks, and then his placement discussions as we get to the end of the year, this is something that we can use to try to find an environment where he’s not going to be doing so poorly in an academic sense.

But in the meantime, I’m going to keep concentrating on the parts at least that amuse me, since there’s not much else I can do…

One thought on “‘Reportedly’

  1. Reportedly, I enjoyed your update. It’s feels so good to get a solid answer sometimes, and the improper use of language often makes me smile just as big.

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