The father of a 10-year-old autistic boy in Cherry Hill, N.J., has posted a series of secretly recorded audio clips of school administrators bullying his son to YouTube.

Since being posted on April 20, the recordings have garnered more than 3 million hits.

Stuart Chaifetz, the father of 10-year-old Akian, obtained the recordings by dressing his son with a hidden recording device. Chaifetz said the idea to wire his son first came to him after receiving reports from his son's school that Akian was acting out and being violent -- something out of character for the otherwise "wonderful and happy child."

After months of meetings with school officials failed to explain his son's supposed violent outbursts, Chaifetz decided he had to know what was going on during the school day.

"I realized I needed to know what was happening in that class," said Chaifetz in an online video introduction to the YouTube recordings.

On Feb. 17, Chaifetz wired his son with a hidden recorder before sending him to school. When his son returned, Chaifetz discovered hours of audio documenting bullying and verbal abuse by school officials.

"That night, my life changed forever," said Chaifetz. "What I heard was so disgusting and vile. It happened not by other children, but by his teacher and the aides, the people who were supposed to protect him. They were literally making my son's life a living hell."

The recordings contain clips of the teacher and teacher's aide shouting at his son, yelling at him to "Shut up!" and calling him a "bastard." The recordings also catch the teacher's aides having inappropriate conversations about drinking alcohol the night before and complaining about their spouses and other parents.

Chaifetz shared the recordings with school officials. The district superintendent responded in a statement saying that "the individuals who are heard on the recording raising their voices and inappropriately addressing children no longer work in the district."

Chaifetz is now calling for a public apology by the teacher, teacher's aide and school administrators. Only the teacher's aide has been fired, said Chaifetz. Akian's teacher has been moved to another classroom.

This is not the first case of parents of children with disabilities using recording technology to investigate suspected cases of bullying and abuse in the classroom. Since 2003 there have been at least nine similar cases across the U.S.

It's a practice that comes recommended by Wendy Fournier, president of the National Autism Association.

"If a parent has any reason at all to suggest a child is being abused or mistreated, I strongly recommend that they do the same thing," she said to The Associated Press.

But critics of the practice say that the privacy rights of the other children must also be considered.

George Giuliani, executive director of the National Association of Special Education Teachers and director of special education at Hofstra University, says that while evidence of the mistreatment of children is disturbing, secret recordings are not the answer.

"We have to be careful that we're not sending our children in wired without knowing the legal issues," Giuliani said to The Associated Press.

Chaifetz says that since making the recordings public, he has received thousands of emails, many from parents asking for advice about how to similarly wire their own children.

He advises them on how to do it, but always warns them: "Make sure it's legal in your state."

Chaifetz hopes that with more parents taking such actions, educators will think twice about mistreating students who cannot speak up for themselves.

"For the tiny percentage of teachers that do it, I hope that they live in fear every day that a kid's going to walk in with a recorder," he said.

With files from the Associated Press