Nico the Neurotypical Peer

Matthew is in a special education preschool class through our public school system. Overall it is a really good program and one of the especially nice aspects is they use neurotypical peers as models in the class. Next school year Nico will be old enough to qualify.

So today, like many other good moms and dads, I trekked on over to Matthew’s school bright and early. And with a nice head cold to go along with it. Thank goodness those running the program were nice enough to let us in the building before the actual registration started. Promptly at 8:30 AM they passed out the registration packets and numbered them so they would know who was in line before who. This was our suggestion as we didn’t think it was fair if you were a faster writer then you could submit your packet ahead of someone that got there before you. They decided this was a good idea too and started numbering us.

To be a peer you must meet certain criteria, the first being the child must be of the correct age. Nico has this, he will be two in June. Next the peer must meet eligibility requirements such as being neruotypical. They will come out and evaluate him if he makes the cut for being high enough in line (we were number 9 so I think we are OK). But he was evaluated the other day to be released from his speech therapy for early intervention and they pronounced him “Perfect”. This is the same group of people that would be evaluating him later, but just from a different school. I also think that having Matthew in the school may give us an advantage since Nico is intimately familiar with children on the spectrum. Not all the kids in his class would be ASD children but it does suggest that he would be sensitive to other disabilities. I am really excited about this possibility for Nico. I think it has a lot of good potential for all involved.

Let’s hope our little neurotypical kid can get into the special ed program. Never thought I’d be saying that, but I am.