It has to be heartbreaking to watch your child slip away into
another world, an autism-induced world, or any of the myriad
manifestations of autism spectrum disorder. At the same time I'm
sure there are gifts to having children with autism, just as there are
with
children with Down syndrome or with every child, for that matter. Even with
the acknowledgement of the gifts, though, often comes the guilt:
Did I somehow cause this?
Many parents of autistic children swear that a
vaccination was the
turning point in their child's life, marking the end of one
manifestation of the child and the beginning of another (though
a lot of evidence
is published to the contrary about the vaccination issue, but my point
here is that parents grasp for meaning when they notice frightening
changes in their children). Now
comes another guilt-inducer:
a new study indicates that children of older parents (over 40) have a higher risk of developing autism.
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