Hi all, I joined this list just recently and have spent some time lurking getting a "feel" for all here. At the risked of being soundly booed for not posting on the north/south discussion (sorry!) I have some questions for any adults or older kids with cp on this list. I have twin 6 year old boys. Sean has moderate spastic diplegic cp, and Andrew is mildly autistic. Sean knows he has cp, and knows that's why he has an aide in school, why he can't run like the other kids, etc. He has a lurching gait and pretty good vision problems. Sean got therapy services from about 9 months old, and between the ages of three and five attended a fully integrated EI pre-school, where the population was fifty percent "typical" kids and fifty percent disabled kids. There was quite a variety of disabilities, too. Halfway through kindergarten we moved to MI, and Sean knows no other kids here who have cp (we know a few autistic kids, but that's way different). Anyways, the pet sitter we hired last summer turned out to be a woman my age with cp! She is very like Sean, but her speech can be a bit hard to understand. Sean was THRILLED to meet her! He kept going on and on about finally meeting someone else on the planet who has cp (forgetting all the kids he knew in pre-school, of course). My question is this....I've been thinking Sean might benefit from knowing others who have cp. Either his age or older. I've been thinking about placing an ad in the paper to that effect. I'd love the opinion of any of you with cp as to what you think. Would it have been important to you to know others with cp growing up? (Or a similar physical disability). Or did you know others and find comfort or acceptance in that? I'd love some advice in this area. I'll post my second question on a separate post as I feel this may be too long already. Thanks, Barbara