"Real Housewives of New Jersey" nice person Jacqueline Laurita's gripes with daughter Ashlee have been well-documented on the hit Bravo show. But 3-year-old son Nicholas, Jacqueline son with husband Chris, has rarely appeared on camera, for reasons we assumed had to do with his young age. Now Laurita is opening up about a secret the show's producers have kept entirely off-camera: Nicholas has autism.

"We had no idea what was going on," Jacquelin said" I worry about him being independent when he's older… I spend all my time researching what we can do for him."
Symptoms of the disorder started appearing around 18 months after Nicholas was born, according to Laurita, including increasingly impaired speech and motor skills. Nicholas was diagnosed during the taping of Season 4, which is currently airing. Autism spectrum disorders affect around 1.5 million people in the U.S., or approximately 1 in 88 children.





"You never want to think your child isn't perfectly healthy. We didn't want to believe it was true," husband Chris said.
The family is sticking together and getting through this time as a family. The whole Manzo family is being supportive to Jacqueline.





-Team Juice