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CHARLOTTE, N.C. — A mother said her autistic son will not go back to Ardrey Kell High School after he was handcuffed at school last week. Charlotte-Mecklenburg School officials said they have to protect the safety of both the student and school staff. But the outraged mom told Eyewitness News reporter Paige Hansen, she can't imagine any reason where handcuffs would be necessary. "It breaks my heart for him because he doesn't know. He's trying and that's autism," said Kim Riley.

(CNN) -- Police have identified those involved in an incident in which the ice bucket challenge trend was used to trick an autistic teenager into being drenched with a bucket of urine, feces and spit. Authorities are not yet releasing the names, and are not discussing potential charges as the investigation is not yet complete, said Bay Village, Ohio, Police Chief Mark Spaetzel.

The Maryland teen who admitted to torturing an autistic boy while and filming the abuse has been sent to a juvenile facility where she'll stay for up to four years. Lauren Bush, 17, pleaded guilty in juvenile court last month to distribution of an obscene video and second-degree assault. Under her sentence, she'll be released before she turns 21, NBC Washington reported. Her case was moved from an adult court — where she faced up to 80 years in prison — to the juvenile system. The lighter sentence outraged the victim's father, who wanted the high school junior punished as...

Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has proposed a far-reaching new law that would force taxpayers to cover the costs of placing tracking devices on autistic children after 14-year-old autistic child Avonte Oquendo was found dead last week. The tracking devices would not be implanted, but would instead be attached to watches, ankle bracelets, belts, or shoelaces. “The program would be completely voluntary for parents and run by local law enforcement,” Schumer’s office announced.

Yet another student has landed in trouble for having something that represents a weapon, but isn’t actually anything like a real weapon. This time it’s an autistic middle school student in South Carolina who was suspended until further notice after he brought a cartoonish drawing of a bomb he drew to school, reports local NBC affiliate WYFF. The student, 13-year-old Rhett Parham, showed his drawing to some older students at Hill Crest Middle School in Greenville. They reported it to school officials. They boy said he got the idea to draw the bomb from a video game called Bomberman Hero....

Public school officials offered a California mother $86,000 to settle complaints about the previous treatment of her autistic, mute and diabetic son , to move him to a private school and to keep her from filing any further complaints about his care. Heather Houston alleges that her 21-year-old son, David Swanson, was force-fed and discriminated against at school. She previously filed a complaint with the office of civil rights and says she plans to sue,... The unsigned settlement offer letter, obtained by ABCNews.com and dated Aug. 27, offers Houston $86,000 in exchange for waiving David's right to attend public school,...

German software development giant SAP plans to hire hundreds of people with autism by 2020. The company hopes to benefit from their unusual skillset and says it's ready for any practical challenges. Advocates hope the program could set an example for others. The Berlin IT firm Auticon contracts people with autism to work as consultants, mainly in the software industry. Autism impairs social and emotional communication, but can also be associated with extraordinary talent for analysis. Quincke facilitates a way to both utilize these strengths and integrate the workers into a professional setting. Now, German software development giant SAP has...

BOULDER, Utah – A 28-year-old autistic man from Colorado was found emaciated but alive on Thursday after living off mainly frogs and roots while wandering for at least three weeks in the remote Escalante Desert of southern Utah, authorities said. William Martin LaFever of Colorado Springs, Colo., told rescuers that in addition to the bits of food he scavenged, he drank water from the Escalante River while attempting to walk from Boulder, Utah, to Page, Ariz., a distance of approximately 90 miles or more by the route he appeared to be taking. The Garfield County Sheriff's Department estimated he had...

This dad wired his Autistic son because he was told that he was violent. The teacher and aids abuse the child and even called him a "b@stard". It makes me sick. Union teacher has tenure, aide was fired.

Back in November, the Wall Street Journal featured a prominent article with the following headline: “The Hidden Toll of Traffic Jams; Scientists Increasingly Link Vehicle Exhaust With Brain-Cell Damage, Higher Rates of Autism”. It was careful to point out that current evidence is circumstantial; no one is certain about such a connection between traffic, exhaust, brain-cell damage and autism. After all, vehicles today put out far, far less pollution than those operating decades ago, when autism rates were far, far lower. It highlighted one study published in Environmental Health Perspectives which found that children born to mothers within 1,000...

Robots from around Europe are flocking to London this week - but, thankfully, we won't need to call Doctor Who to fend off this particular onslaught. More than 20 cutting-edge robots from around Europe will be on display at the Science Museum's Robotville exhibition this week - including a robot designed to help autistic children, and a robot that can (sometimes) catch a ball. Naturally, many of the robots look like slightly spooky human beings - but other fields of robotics will be represented instead, including 'swarm' robotics, where tiny robots work together, a relatively new idea being pioneered in...

HANOVER, VA (WWBT) - NBC12 has just learned that missing eight-year-old Robert Wood, Jr. has been found alive. Sources on the scene say Wood was discovered just west of the quarry. Wood has been taken to a local hospital, but we haven't confirmed which one at this time. This is a developing story. Keep refreshing this page for the latest information.

ScienceDaily (Oct. 20, 2010) — Dogs may not only be man's best friend, they may also have a special role in the lives of children with special needs. According to a new Université de Montreal study, specifically trained service dogs can help reduce the anxiety and enhance the socialization skills of children with Autism Syndrome Disorders (ASDs).

SHANGHAI (Hollywood Reporter) - Action hero Jet Li gives a respectable turn as a terminally ill father grooming his autistic son to survive on his own in "Ocean Heaven" -- a decent, if orthodox job by Xue Xiaolu. Film Xue off-sets some of the wholesome soppiness of this genre by keeping the tone light, the story simple and steered clear of grueling ordeals. Compared with another father-son story "Together," which she co-scripted and Chen Kaige directed, it is less melodramatic and artificial. Set mostly in a marine park in Qingtao province, its interpretation of autism owes less to "Rain Man"...

Clifford Grevemberg doesn't want to go to jail. On Friday night, the lanky 18-year-old was arrested by Tybee police on a disorderly conduct charge in front of the Rock House on 16th Street. He says he was Tased twice and thrown to the ground, breaking one of his front teeth and leaving scrapes on his face and knee. But Grevemberg, who suffers from a form of autism, still wants to know what he did wrong. "I just wanted to go to sleep," the 6-foot-9-inch tall, 170-pound teenager said Saturday. "I sat down on the curb and put my head in...

May 17, 2010 Mother Charged With Murdering Autistic Boy, 11, At Airport Hotel Judith Evans A mother was charged today with murdering her autistic 11-year-old son at an airport hotel in Wales. Yvonne Freaney, 48, of Penarth, was arrested after police found her with her dead son, holding his hand, at Glen at the Sky Plaza Hotel on Saturday. Glen had last been seen alive on Thursday. Police believe that Mrs Freaney had spent the interim in the hotel room with her son’s body. South Wales Police said that Glen’s friends and family had contacted them on Saturday, concerned about...

(May 14) -- A 14-year-old autistic boy in Georgia faces felony charges of making terroristic threats after he drew a stick-figure version of himself firing a gun at his teacher. After discovering the crudely rendered drawing that Shane Finn had made on his classwork, officials at Atlanta's Ridgeview Charter School suspended the eighth-grader and decided to pursue charges against him, Fox News in Atlanta reported.

As many of you know, I'm the mom of two autistic kids. While I've been blessed that they are high-functioning, it has been and continues to be something we struggle with. It can be exhausting. The last statistics I had read about the prevelance of autism spectrum disorders placed the number at 1 in every 100 kids. That's staggering. Could you imagine the outcry from the gay community if this was AIDS we were talking about? But yet the Washington DC voices remain silent.

Mystery 'pilot' cannot tell police his origin By Petra Krischok in Berlin Last Updated: 2:17am BST 12/07/2007 German police are trying to identify a man they believe to be British, who has a detailed knowledge of military planes but cannot tell them where he comes from. Karl has been named 'the pilot' The man, who calls himself Karl, has been cared for in a nursing home. He was found in a confused state in the city of Heidelberg three days ago. Echoing the case of the "piano man" in England, Karl is known as "the pilot" to staff because of...

HAWTHORNE - Hawthorne police have launched a misconduct investigation of an officer who used a 50,000-volt stun gun on a violent autistic 12-year-old boy at one of the city's middle schools, it was reported today. Such use of electroshock weapons by police on young students is rare, but high-profile incidents have sparked fierce debate around the country over when, if ever, Tasers should be used on children. A Hawthorne police spokesman told The Los Angeles Times that the department launched its investigation in response to a complaint by the boy's parents days after the Sept. 23 incident. He said department...