16p11.2 Ribbon

Facebook has been incredible - not only do I have the ability to talk with family that I have spent so little time with in the past.

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I've also found friends from decades ago!!

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And an incredible thing - I can meet people that are traveling down similar roads that I would never have met without facebook.

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Recently I found a group of other families with children that have the 16p11.2 microdeletion. If you don't remember the specific information about it - there is a post in early 2008 about it. But the cliff note version is that these kids have apiece of their 16th chromosome missing. The the "P11.2" is the exact location of the missing information.

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Because this is such a new syndrome - it doesn't even have a name yet & the geneticists are still trying to find what all it means.

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The biggest common thread with the kids is some level of autistic spectrum behaviors, which is how it was initially discovered - they were trying to find a cause for autism.

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I have met families from Australia, Austria, Scotland, England, Kentucky, Connecticut, Indiana, Massachusetts, and several others that I am still trying to get to know!!

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One of the Mom's has a little girl named Hannah - and her and Hannah's older sister have made the following ribbon for the 16p11.2 - I hope you enjoy it and the explanation below as much as I have!! I am extremely impressed with the work they put in this!! Now she is working on getting it printed for magnets and shirts!! I'm ALL IN with getting some of these ribbons!!

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♥ the puzzle pieces represents the link that it has to autism (it is the closest genetic link to date) and also represents the struggle to put the pieces together
♥ the outer edge is purple for the children with this deletion that also have epilepsy (the epilepsy awareness ribbon is purple)
♥ the salmon colored puzzle piece is the 16th piece on the ribbon and also the 16th color used. and Hannah's favorite color