KEY POINTS:
Logan Bowater is clearly agitated about something, and won't stop fidgeting or pacing the room.
After an exhausting few minutes he takes a seat across from his mother as Days of Our Lives plays in the background.
"Can I turn the telly up, eh, eh?" he asks. "No, not right now," she says. Within seconds the twitching starts followed by a series of monotonous, dry noises in his throat which quickly escalate to loud uncontrollable grunts.
He hurls himself back in the chair. His eyes roll in their sockets and he starts contorting. "Yeah, Yeah, urgh, urgh" he shouts, his 100 kilogram frame overcome by a series of violent muscular tics.
It could easily be mistaken for a teenage temper tantrum, but in Logan's case it's anything but.
The 15-year-old suffers from Tourette's syndrome, a neurological condition in which patients involuntarily grimace, shout obscenities and in some severe cases make barking noises.
The condition is believed to affect one in 100 people with early symptoms first noticed in childhood. While many cope with the disease and go on to lead reasonably normal lives, Logan's affliction has become a curse.
No school in Auckland will have him, other children make fun of him and his days are spent closeted in his bedroom with only an X-box for company. Says Logan: "I want to go to school. Why won't they put me in a school? I want to learn to read and write."
For his mother Raewyn Todd, life with Logan has become a stream of doctor's appointments, telephone calls to specialists and heated arguments with education authorities.
These days she barely leaves the house. "You wouldn't believe how tough this is on Logan. He sits in his room on the X-box all day because he has got nowhere to go," she says.
"Something as simple as a trip to the shops with Logan is a nightmare. We've had enough. This has destroyed our family. You can't imagine how difficult this situation is."
She describes Logan as one of the forgotten children; a child who has slipped through the education net because there are no specialist facilities in New Zealand to accommodate his complex needs.
"What is to become of my boy?," she asks.
Logan's problems began at kindergarten. Exhaustingly energetic and impulsive, his behaviour would lurch from one extreme to the other. Raewyn knew then there wasn't something quite right with her son.
"He would just destroy my house. We couldn't go anywhere."
Doctors prescribed Ritalin for suspected attention deficit hyperactivity disorder which seemed to have a calming effect, but by age 12 his neurological symptoms became more complex.
Doctors later confirmed Logan had Tourette's syndrome, the early signs of which were the involuntary outbursts and physical tics from twitching to uncontrollable spasms. Then came the uncontrollable mimicry and explosive expletive-laden outbursts.
Logan was also suffering from bouts of anxiety, compulsive behaviour and explosive attacks of rage.
Teachers at Auckland's Rangeview Intermediate School were the first in the firing line.
"He'd call them f***** this and f***** that," Raewyn recalls. "He didn't know what was appropriate and what wasn't appropriate."
Other children would make fun of him and in class his tics were such a disruption he was put in a class by himself. When that didn't work, Logan was handed to the school caretaker.
"This was the last thing he needed," says Raewyn. "He was isolated from the other kids straight away so they made more fun of him. And when he was with the caretaker he wasn't learning anything. He still wasn't able to read or write so he needed to be in a classroom not out cutting the lawns."
The baiting from the other children became too much and Logan lashed out, hitting the kids. "I don't blame him," says Raewyn.
He was also stood down for a week after swearing at a motorist at a level crossing near the school.
Logan was then told he could only attend school for two hours a day until eventually it was decided the best place for him was at home with his mother.
'They made no effort to understand his condition," says Raewyn. "They zoned in on everything that was wrong with him. They didn't care about the fact he had Tourette's."
Rangeview principal David Latimer disputes that, and says numerous "support mechanisms" were put in place to help Logan. A lot of time, energy and financial resources went into Logan, says Latimer and the decision to cut his hours was done in consultation with his mother. It was an attempt to keep him at school rather than have him excluded for "extreme violent behaviour".
"We did as much as we could with Logan with the resources and personnel available to us. We did everything possible to keep him at school. But there was a big issue in keeping other children safe. Because of his condition he was unpredictable. He was much bigger than the other kids and he was much more violent than the other kids."
IN 2006 Logan was enrolled into Henderson High School's special needs class, but within a few months he was stood down after striking another student. There was also an altercation with a teacher. "I explained to the school Logan had Tourette's syndrome, but there didn't appear to be any sympathy or understanding for his condition."
On his return to school, Logan was told he was only allowed at school for two hours a day.
Two months into the school year Raewyn removed Logan before, she says, he was expelled.
Principal Joy Eaton says Logan received individual attention from a teacher aide at Henderson High and the school arranged for support from a psychologist, Group Special Education and Starship hospital.
No other mainstream school was prepared to accept Logan so Raewyn enrolled Logan into Arohanui Special School, but again there were issues.
The first year at Arohanui was a success, but last year, Raewyn says, was a "complete disaster".
In term two of last year there was an incident involving a teacher who Logan admits calling "an Indian b****" and ongoing issues with a handicapped boy in his class.
As a result Logan's hours were again cut to two hours a day.
"This happened again. They cut his hours. He may have this disorder, but he's not simple. He knew what they were doing," Raewyn says. "This got his back up. Logan knew the school was washing their hands of him."
Says Logan: "They blamed me for everything. It didn't matter what it was, I was always the one they'd blame. It's not fair."
After Logan's school hours were cut, his Tourette's worsened and he became increasingly anxious, biting the inside of his mouth until raw.
Raewyn removed her son from Arohanui and placed him in a community-based programme.
"He enjoyed this programme, but it wasn't helping him with the reading and writing."
Arohanui principal James Le Marquand said there was no doubt that Logan presented a huge challenge to the education system.
"I understand Raewyn's frustrations. We have gone to all sorts of lengths to find options for Logan but there is nothing out there."
However, he added it was wrong to say Logan had been abandoned, as the Ministry of Health is now investigating options for him.
Autism New Zealand, an organisation which covers a range of neurological disorders including Tourette's, believes more needs to be done for teenagers such as Logan.
President Wendy Duff says it's simply not good enough to say Tourette's sufferers can't fit into the mainstream education system.
"Why should they be denied the right to a proper education?"
With Logan no longer in school, Raewyn has taken on the challenge of trying to teach her son to read and write at home.
But it's tough, she says.
"We argue. He won't sit still. I've absolutely had it. Being at home all day is driving Logan mad. But if we go out he gets anxious especially when people look at him and laugh."
She says a dairy owner once pulled a baseball bat on Logan after he began ticking and grunting.
"There is no school and no one trained to deal with him so now it's in the hands of the ministry. There's no future for Logan. Who's going to help him? He has already missed out on being a teenager."
Adds Logan: "This situation sucks. I want to be treated like a normal kid."
