I wrote the piece for the Wellesley/Weston magazine and realize through the volume of feedback that I have struck a chord in these communities. The word "autistic" strikes fear into the hearts of so many parents though not a day goes by when I don't meet a person who has a son/daughter/niece/nephew/neighbor on the spectrum. The 'hot spot' issue is, well, a hot one. This theory grew out of an article in "Wired" magazine that posed the controversial theory that the offspring of computer geeks in Silicon Valley had  much higher rates of an ASD than in other areas of the country. This theory posited that a genetic thread was responsible for autism's stratospheric incidence rates. Naturally many people didn't cotton to the somewhat hysterical "the nerds are reproducing!" theory with much kindness.