A hundred years ago people with an intellectual disability were locked up in "lunatic asylums". Today they're still locked away, but it's just behind the walls of suburbia.

This is a story I'm trying to write without being able to give you specific details. It includes allegations of sexual abuse, physical assault and degradation, so people have asked for identities to be protected.

Neelima Choahan

When Maria Thomas placed her son in a state-funded disability emergency home, she expected him to be safe.

Instead, Matthew, a non-verbal man with autism, was attacked several times at a group home, Autism Plus, that he shared with four other people.

Amanda Robbemond

FOUR months ago little Kai Patch wouldn’t turn around when his name was repeatedly called.

Diagnosed with autism in October last year, the two-year-old struggled to talk, make eye contact or interact.

Worried about his future, his parents, Sonya and Ben Patch, decided to move the family north from NSW to enrol at Arundel’s Little Souls Taking Big Steps, one of two autistic centres on the Coast and the only one that provides a one-on-one therapy program.

Susan Scutti

(CNN) Preventable injuries often lead to death among people with autism, a new study says. They are three times more likely than the general population to die because of injuries, according to the study, published Tuesday in the American Journal of Public Health.

When I was four-years-old a speech therapist told my mother that my inability to speak would right itself. Her GP told her not to worry about my severe sleep problems and that I was simply a fussy eater for only eating jam sandwiches and yogurt.

The self-harm and eating disorder I developed as a teen was put down to depression and when I tried to end my life aged eighteen, I was called selfish by the nurse who pumped my stomach.

 Michael Gorey

The public sector is well suited to employing people with autism but more needs to be done to foster workplace diversity, according to disability employment advocate Bill Gamack.

Mr Gamack's firm EPIC Assist is opening a Canberra office next month in partnership with Danish company Specialisterne.

Dan Conifer and FOI editor Michael McKinnon

VIDEO: Joshua Adam says his experience with the NDIS has been terrible (ABC News)

The National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) stopped processing thousands of applications from service providers, critical staff were untrained and properties were not ready when the scheme's nationwide rollout began, documents have revealed.