Full Bucket

Shocker... the Autism rate has increased 78% since 2002. And in part I'm sure the trajectory has increased due to early diagnosis, more resource availability, and awareness. The whirlpool of ideas that may lead to autistic tendencies swirls around vaccines, foods, environmental factors, and genetics. I love the quote from the CEO of the Kennedy Krieger Institute (for autism support):

"If the rate is truly increasing, then there has to be something in the environment interacting with people who are prone--something that pushes people who are at risk over the edge," he says. "We are beginning to identify the risk genes, but [the genes] don't cause it all by themselves."

And this is where we have been living and discovering daily. There are just some things that send our child over the edge. If we get those things out of his diet, we notice changes... better coping with transitions, less sensory challenges, more bodily control. I imagine it much like a big bucket of water. Some children are a full bucket, ready to spill over, and when something heavy is thrown in this bucket, the water splashes out soaking everyone around it.  And for us the same factors that effect our "full bucket" child, do not effect our other two children. 

I look forward to seeing the research continuing towards environmental factors as an aggregate to an underlying dispostion in some children. A true epidemic in our world, a spectrum (range, gamut, sweep, extent, scope, span) of possibilities, and each child a unique diagnosis and path to healing.