27-year-old autism therapist charged with physical abuse of child

Posted: Published on December 30th, 2013

This post was added by Dr Simmons

Posted on: 4:35 pm, December 30, 2013, by Katie DeLong, updated on: 07:37pm, December 30, 2013

WAUWATOSA (WITI) 27-year-old Stephen Jacobs of Wauwatosa faces one count of physical abuse of a child, sexual assault of a child, physical abuse of a child by a child care provider.

Officials spoke with the childs mother, who said her child suffers from severe autism and had been receiving treatment through a company called Autism Intervention Milwaukee for several months.

The childs mother told officials that she was advised by her childs doctor that he may be more mentally handicapped that previously diagnosed, and that his treatment needed to change. This, according to the criminal complaint.

The criminal complaint says the child received in-home treatment from four different therapists and neither she, nor her husband were allowed to be present for the therapy.

The complaint says the child is non-verbal, and unable to communicate what happens at therapy sessions. The childs mother and father became concerned that the childs treatment was not having the desired effect, so they placed a web camera in the treatment area to record his treatments on December 12th, 13th and 14th.

The complaint says that on December 14th, the childs mother observed therapist Stephen Jacobs physically assault her son.

The complaint says the childs mother ordered Jacobs out of her home and a copy of the video was given to investigators.

The complaint says Jacobs is seen in the video shaking the child so that his head snaps back and then quickly forward, headbutting the child, kicking the child in the head, hitting him in the head with a pillow, grabbing the child by the arm, pulling him across the room and then aggressively throwing the child onto the couch.

The complaint says the child was thrown with such force that the couch rocked backwards on impact.

Read the original here:
27-year-old autism therapist charged with physical abuse of child

This entry was posted in Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink.

Comments are closed.