I am not sure where to post this, so I am sorry if it's not the right room. Long post, but I want to give a full picture for the most accurate advice.🤗

I have a 7 year old nephew. He is on the autism spectrum. Non-verbal. A lot of stimming. All he does now is walking around in circles stimming. His mother (my sister) is giving him only food he can hold-pastrylike foods, practically no fruits or vegetables. He crumbles the pastry and eats 10% of what he was given. My sister lives alone with him and leaves him from time to time with my mother. When she does, she will leave him about four to 6 hours per day and sometimes overnight. When he is in my mother's place he sits still, he will eat what she gives him and my mother tires to engage him in activities, she has taught him so far to go to the fridge when he wants sth to eat. She is trying to teach him to open it and take/recognise what he wants and take it. But he's not there yet. She is also trying to teach him how to eat with cutlery. Still working on it. He's still in diapers. My mother does not want to overwhelm him and wants to tackle this once he can feed himself better. Then he goes home and my sister will call my mother and me and swears at us, saying my mother pressured him that day and now he is extra stressed and will not sleep. He also wakes up in the middle of the night, takes off all of his clothes and starts stimming naked.

My mother takes him for long walks early afternoon when he is with her and he sleeps well when he does that. No waking up.

My mother has searched a lot what she can do. We have bought sensory toys for him and she thinks stem cells could also help him. My sister screams and yells and beats up my mother when my mother proposes this. I am conflicted about stem cells. Online there is more no to them than yes, but I have one colleague and one friend who tried that treatment for their children and the before and after is significantly positive. What do you think?

My mother tried the PECS, but she felt my nephew would get upset and so stopped trying with them. My sister does not use them and thinks they are useless. Should my mother still try with them?

My nephew had a spot for a specialized school but my sister opted to send him to a regular school with an aide with him in the classroom. There has been no improvement. He simply walks around in the classroom stimming. His teacher is telling my sister that my nephew is not benefiting from the class and that he needs a specialized school. Is the teacher right, or is she incompetent as my sister says?

How can we help?

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‐------For those who have a minute for background-------

My father was very abusive. My sister repeats this abuse towards my mother and me. I have never seen her do anything like that to him and talks to him in a kind way even when he creates messes (as she should; my father would beat us up for example). She does not work. Her income comes from real estate my mother gave to her. All of her bfs have been abusive, including the father of her child. She says that while they have hit her, they never hit my nephew. My mother thinks that even so, what my nephew has witnessed has made him withdraw more into the self-soothing stimming and into himself.

My sister said once OK for the stem cells and my mother gave her 5k to start. My sister spent all that money on a vacation with her ex‐bf and asked my mother for more.

My mother, 68 years old, has asked my sister to bring my nephew over to her place every day, so she can try to have a routine and a consistency established with him, but my sister does not want to because she says my mother is pressuring him and that she was a horrible mother. I think she is and was a great mother.

My sister used to beat me up all my life when my mother was not in the room, later she would burn me with cigarettes and so forth. I have minimum contact with her. Every time I try to ask her if she needs anything or any help, she yells at me and tells me to mind my own business. So I don't know what to do for that little boy. I buy him toys, she throws them away or tries to sell them and asks me for money instead. I give her money and à toy and clothes for my nephew, she keeps the money and leaves the rest with my mother, saying I have terrible taste or that my nephew does not play with toys. Her house is a cockroach infested hoarded pigsty, I have offered multiple times to pay someone to come every day to clean, she says she does not want strangers in her house. She wants my 68 year old mother to clean. My mother cannot even clean her own home. She keeps up with basic cleaning, but I am paying a lady to do the heavy cleaning for her once a week.

During the second year of my nephew 's life, I was living with my mother. He was already exhibiting many of the behaviors he has today, but he would sit with me and would let me read to him and he knew all the shapes and the animal sounds. Now he does not. There is absolutely no communication. Only my mother manages through repetition to teach him sometimes. I don't know what to do.

We have been paying for occupational therapy but my sister felt it was not working, so she stopped taking him to that centre. I proposed another centre. She went once and then said they are not going back, because it is filled with pedophiles. I said what happened, she said two creepy looking men asked her where they were going and how they could help. I said what did they look like, were they also parents, she says they were the security guards. I mean, you never know, but thats their job. To ask that. She got mad at me when I said that.