After the 2012 school shooting in Newtown, Conn., advocates for children in the state put a renewed focus on special education and children who need help.

One challenge? Getting parents and school districts to agree on what to do.

At a house in West Hartford, a young man and his grandfather are watching movies. First, it's The Love Bug. Now, it's Aliens.

"There's a lot of action scenes in it," says the young man. He's still a teenager, actually, a big 19-year-old who loves comic books and martial arts.

His mother is Carol. She doesn't want to identify her son because she fears going public with his mental health issues could cause him harm. So we're not using her last name, either.

Carol says her son craved social interaction ever since he was young, but he struggled with it. Then, in high school, he started to change. He was getting bullied. He became withdrawn and paranoid. His grades dropped.

[For more of this story, written by Jeff Cohen, go to http://www.npr.org/sections/he...on-personalized-help]