TORONTO -- Autism advocates were horrified to hear a Mississauga mother is accused of killing her autistic teenage son.

"The bottom line is we've got a 15-year-old who won't turn 16 and who knows what his potential could have been?" Karyn Dumble, a spokesman for Autism Ontario, told the Sun yesterday.

She said autism support groups constantly encourage parents feeling the toll of dealing with a child with autism to contact a crisis hotline or even 911.

"When you've got a child in crisis, then you've got the entire family in crisis," Dumble said, adding more support for parents throughout their autistic child's life needs to be available.

Last month, advocates were shocked to hear an Edmonton father killed his 11-year-old autistic son before killing himself.

Suzanne Lanthier, executive director of Autism Speaks Canada, said families living with autism deal with a "significant amount of stress."

"But that doesn't always turn into a homicide or a murder or anything else like that," she said, adding 1 in 91 children are being diagnosed with autism.

"When you're looking at those types of numbers, you're looking at a lot of families who are under a lot of pressure who don't turn to that type of behaviour."

Lanthier said it would be too much of an assumption that autism had anything to do with the Mississauga murder.

DON.PEAT@SUNMEDIA.CA