This week, CafeMom aurorabunny shares several strategies she has learned and uses to prepare herself and her son with autism for all the changes that come with celebrating the holidays.

Each week in Special Needs Living, aurorabunny, mom to 3-year old Brody, who has autism, shares her ongoing triumphs and struggles parenting a child with special needs.

CafeMom aurorabunny is back with another edition of Special Needs Living.

aurorabunny's 3-year old son Brody was diagnosed with classic autism at one year, falling on the severe side of the spectrum in terms of development. At present, Brody is still mostly nonverbal, using a few words, sign language, and PECS (Picture Exchange Communication System) to communicate.

Each week, aurorabunny discusses the everyday struggles and triumphs of raising a child with special needs and an invisible disability.

I'm happy to introduce our new column Special Needs Living from CafeMom aurorabunny.

aurorabunny's 3-year old son Brody was diagnosed with classic autism at one year, falling on the severe side of the spectrum in terms of development. At present, Brody is still mostly nonverbal, using a few words, sign language, and PECS (Picture Exchange Communication System) to communicate.

Each week, aurorabunny will be talking about the everyday struggles and triumphs of raising a child with special needs and an invisible disability.

Photo by aurorabunny

If you have a child with autism or follow the issues at all, you know all about the celebrities, the vaccines and the environmental factors. But unless you've been in some of the group discussions here at CafeMom, you might not know everything that goes on behind the scenes.

Not all moms of autistic children agree on the right way to feel about it. Many argue strongly that a child's autism should be accepted and embraced -- thought of as just another personality trait to love. Gina Gallagher, mom blogger of Shut Up About Your Perfect Kid, certainly feels this way.

But in an effort to better understand autism and all the emotions behind it, here's aurorabunny, mom of a 2 year old on the severe end of the spectrum, with the opposite point-of-view:

Speaking of vaccines and controversial subjects, here's some new findings on autism's link to the environment. A group of doctors in California, where autism rates are skyrocketing, feel strongly that autism may be more the result of household cleaning products, pesticides, and other chemicals than previously thought.

In a study in the journal Epidemiology, the researchers give a bunch of numbers that show increases in autism are not artificial -- that is, caused by immigration rates or more diagnoses due to increased awareness. They also toss out the probability of genetics and vaccines (thimerosal was taken out of vaccines in 1999) being a huge factor for various reasons.

There's a war going on between two top pediatricians. Dr. Paul Offit, a big vaccine proponent and spokesman for the American Academy of Pediatrics, is slamming a book by the noted Dr. Robert Sears (son of William).

Dr. Sears' best-selling book, The Vaccine Book: Making the Right Decision for Your Child, includes Dr. Bob's Alternative Vaccine Schedule, a formula by which parents can space out vaccines and delay the ones for the lowest-risk diseases.

Right now, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends babies get 14 different vaccines, requiring as many as 5 shots in a single visit and 26 by age 2. Dr. Sears feels more parents would opt to vaccinate if they had the choice of using his slower vaccine schedule.

As we all know from being on CafeMom, we moms have a natural instinct for looking out for one another -- even total strangers. Offline, as well. You see a child who's about to fall out of the cart in the grocery store, or poised to pop a marble in his mouth, and you pounce. No hesitation at all jumping right in.

But in some situations, it's a bit harder to know the right thing to do. Here's a story from babble.com about a mom, Amy Lutz, with an autistic son who takes her younger kids to a toddler music class. She could tell that another child in the class, a 20-month-old, is clearly autistic -- but his mom had no idea.

After Denis Leary said autistic kids are really "stupid" and "lazy," CafeMom moms spoke out, and a third of moms in a Daily Buzz poll said they felt he was hurting the autism cause. Well, it seems Leary has taken an about-face and apologized for the comments in his book (or maybe he more like clarified them).

"I can only imagine how upsetting reading the remarks excerpted from my upcoming book must be for any parent of a child with autism. All I can say is that the quotes from my book that caused so much pain were taken out of context and selectively edited.

Photo by Stephen Shugerman/Getty

Now comes Jenny McCarthy claiming in Us Weekly that her 6-year-old son has "recovered" from autism. She, too, has a recent book out called "Mother Warriors: A Nation of Parents Healing Autism Against All Odds."

As you can imagine, our mom members have a few words of their own to add.