Mother forced into desperate acts to get special needs assistant

She deprived her young son of sleep, dressed him in unfamiliar clothes and filled him full of liquids so that he struggled to control his bladder. And she did it out of love, writes Caroline O’Doherty

A MOTHER describes the painful lengths she went to in order to ensure her eight-year-old boy, who has autism, was allocated a special needs assistant to help him cope with the school day:

“I am ashamed to say that before my son was diagnosed with ASD [autism spectrum disorder], I thought that when parents talked about having to fight for everything, they were exaggerating.