No respite for family whose sons have autism

Little Michael regularly wakes up at three o’clock in the morning. He’ll jump out of his bed and race, shouting, into the rooms of his brother and sister, dragging them from their beds, pulling off their pyjamas.

The family knows once Michael is up, there will be no going back to sleep for him, or, by extension, for his family.

Michael is five and can’t speak. He gets enormously angry and “lashes out a lot”, says mum Jean.