Holy Mackerel. "Family's Struggle: All Six Kids Are Autistic"

"Autism is a difficult diagnosis for any parent. For Robin and John Kirton, it's difficulty times six.

Each of their six children suffers from a different form of the disorder, which affects an estimated one in 150 American children. It's an incredibly rare occurrence that, experts say, points to something in the genes."


The Kirton family has their own blog for parents of children on the spectrum: Autism Bites.


If you read the article, it states:

"Studies have shown that if one child has autism, the chance of the next sibling having it is only about 15 percent."

A lot of the comments on the article were negative. Things like "use condoms!" "quit breeding!", etc. Personally, life is hard with one child with a disability. I can't even imagine having six! I think that honestly, despite not knowing what was wrong with Buddy Guy when he was little, we felt that we were not in a place mentally/emotionally, to be able to handle any other children. Knowing that the risk for having another child with Autism is higher were we to conceive again, well.. we were not willing to risk that. Of course we love both of our children. And though D's now "snipped" (well before BG's diagnosis), were there to be some miraculous conception, of course we would love the child no matter what was wrong with it.

That said, you really don't know what kind of child you will have. 15% is only 15%. Who would possibly imagine having 6 children all on the spectrum? Maybe they hoped after their 3rd that they would have a neuro-typical child? Maybe it was unwise to take that risk, as the two middle children are both "classic" cases. Then again, they seem to be handling it very well. If you believe that God only gives you what you can handle, then they seem to be proving that. Their children are here, the parents are loving them, and I think we can all find something to learn from them- take from their story what you will.