Good friend of mine has a severely autistic son that they had to institutionalize after he hit puberty. He destroyed just about everything you can imagine in their home.
My sister worked with autistic children in Oregon and she would tell stories but she did it for about 20 years.
My aunt believes that her son got autism because when she was pregnant with him, she had a gas leak in her house and didnt leave til the gas company came to fix it, so she stayed in the house smelling the gas so she thinks he became autistic from that, is there a connection, I find it hard to believe but I guess anything is possible..her other 3 boys are not autistic he is the only one..its sad, he lives in a home with 3 other adults, its a crappy home but its what the state of CA pays for, the workers steal his stuff, my aunt will get him a jacket or sweater or a stereo and it will just disappear, so yeah of course they stole it but she cant do anything about it so his life is pretty crummy