The young Perth man confined to a dingy bedroom in a Department of Communities house will be allocated an extra staff member to support him during the night.

Yesterday Karen Parkinson told how her son Reece, who has autism spectrum disorder and some very challenging and sometimes destructive behaviours, spends most of his time locked in a bedroom with two mattresses on the floor and an ice-cream container for a toilet. His window is boarded up, and there are four locks on the door.

Reece resides in a house in Caversham, which a clinical psychologist, the Centre for Applied Behaviour Analysis and his family say forces him to live in restrictive conditions and contributes to his deterioating behaviour.

The department admits it is 'not ideal'.