No Typical Classroom

(Neuro-diverse children or children displaying characteristics common to those with a neuro-diverse condition)

Imagine a plane journey…

Neuro-typical children take off at birth and land safely at their destination as ‘competent travellers’. They arrive safely having watched a movie the whole way. Their journey has passed smoothly and has been an enjoyable, mostly effortless experience.

So what about children with neuro-diverse characteristics? Well… their flight usually follows exactly the same path as the other children’s, but it could be delayed. Maybe, they were late to take off or their plane had a smaller engine… Either way, their journey is much longer.

In most cases, they eventually arrive at the same destination as the other children, but they land later.

There is usually no memory of the frustrating journey – they have such a great time that they forget any troubles that they had along the way.

Now for some children, their flight is not only delayed but once it takes off it runs into severe turbulence and the pilot has to slow the plane down. They might even have to make a wide detour or an emergency landing to a completely different destination.

And although the flight keeps trying to head in the right direction it then has to refuel so it stops again, and then again.

And because of these extra stops, the plane is now travelling outside of its schedule and has to keep detouring to other airports. At some stages of the journey, it even appears to go back.

Often these planes receive a ‘co-pilot’ to help steer them to their final destination but in some cases, the plane never actually ends up there, and their travel experiences differ from the others.  Well, this is what it may be like for children with neuro-diverse conditions.

These children do not follow the typical course of development. They follow their own pathways…

(Source unknown)