This week, the iconic Parkes Radio Telescope will join a host of significant buildings and landmarks across the world being lit up for 'Light It Up Blue For Autism'.

The Currajong Autism and Special Needs Group (Currajong Disability Services sub-committee), in conjunction with Parkes Shire Council, have worked with CSIRO to light up the local landmark to raise awareness about the condition as part of World Autism Awareness Month.

Hayley Warden

Nowra Public School has doubled their students intake since opening an autism unit only a year ago and that figure looks set to triple in the next 12 months.

There are 14 students enrolled in the unit, with a maximum of seven in each class. 

“Since last year we have had another class start,” Nowra Public School teacher Sue Griffin said. 

Warren Thomson

A MOTHER was left “mortified” after her son who has autism was kicked off a bus and left on his own in Dural.

Melissa Hewitson’s 16-year-old son Tyler routinely catches a bus from Old Northern Road, Dural to Pennant Hills Station as part of his morning commute to Hornsby TAFE four times a week.

But on Friday, March 17, Tyler’s Opal card had insufficient funds. Instead of letting him tap on and stay on the bus, the bus driver told him to get off.

“I was mortified that they could chuck a kid off the bus,” Ms Hewitson said.

An Illawarra FaCS worker accused of beating a mute autistic boy was brought undone when the child's parents grew suspicious and sent him to respite care with a tape recorder concealed in his bag, a court has heard.

Police will allege disability support worker Lennard Michael Downes, 35, can be heard verbally and physically abusing the boy on the recording, which was taken over a two day period at a government-run care centre in November last year.

ASHLEIGH GLEESON, The Daily Telegraph

AUTISTIC students are being forced to miss huge amounts of class time with hundreds of suspensions dished out at NSW schools every day, according to several mothers of autistic children.

The mother of an eight-year-old autistic boy in Western Sydney missed a whopping 43 days of school in the first half of this year, while another mum said her six-year-old received a 15-day suspension when he reacted to a teacher wrongly restraining him.

A family of four, including two children with autism, who were found dead in their northern Sydney home died as a result of a murder-suicide, police say.

Police said it appeared the family died of gas poisoning and are asking the public for help to discover the motive behind the deaths.

THE Davidson family found dead in their home yesterday are believed to have been deliberately gassed to death with a poison that was released using devices throughout the house.

Mother Maria Claudia Lutz, 43, was found in one room with one of her children and her other child was found alone in a separate room.

Fernando Manrique’s body was found in another room in the house.

Georgina Mitchell, SMH

A school in Sydney's west has denied it repeatedly locked an autistic boy in a cage-like structure and left him there alone, despite the boy's mother saying she witnessed it happen and the boy describing how he tried to climb out.

Lynda Jordan said her son Toby, 13, who has a mild intellectual disability, was locked into the structure at the Aspect Macarthur School in Cobbitty whenever he had a "meltdown", a process which caused him significant distress.

NATASHA BITA

State Education Minister ­Adrian Piccoli, a Nationals MP, said the federal government’s ­refusal to fully fund the Gonski ­reforms, worth $5 billion to NSW schools, was like stopping a new railway line midway through construction. “It’s like building a train line that costs $5bn and takes six years to build, but you stop building it halfway through,’’ he said.

“You’ve already spent $2bn or $3bn and no passengers have travelled on it.