Did Autism Lead to Shooting? No Way!
Friday April 20, 2007
All of a sudden, we are starting to hear that the Virginia Tech shooter may have been autistic. That information seems to have come from Cho's Korean Aunt (translated, perhaps incorrectly, from the Korean). The good folks at AutismLink.org have already made a formal rebuttal, which may cause more harm than good by underlining a very questionable diagnosis. Whether or not Cho was diagnosable as autistic, there were clearly many, many other issues at play - none of which have anything to do with autism. Here are just a few:
- Cho was mentally ill. Autism is not a mental illness.
- Cho was obviously mistreated in school - something that often happens to people with autism, but is not a cause of or proof of autism.
- Cho was diagnosed with depression, not an element of autism.
- Cho was quiet - something that is sometimes (though not always) a trait of autism, but is also simply a personality trait which is neither good nor bad.
- Cho was isolated and ostracized - again, something that can happen to people with autism, but neither causes nor proves that a person is autistic.
The scariest thing about the aftermath of the Virginia shooting is the way in which the smallest aberrations are called "red flags" for violence. Is a person quiet? Do they prefer to spend time alone? Are they NOT the life of the party? Might they be less into pizza parties than into school work? Clearly, that person is atypical, and thus suspect.
As we start to clamp down on all atypical behavior, it seems to me that we narrow the opportunities we provide our children for creativity, individuality, experimentation and self-discovery. For children with autism, the pressure to comform and behave as "typically" as possible could easily become overwhelming, upsetting, and finally unbearable.
Comments
Thank you for saying making these points so clearly, and so swiftly! Autism awareness and understanding is at an all time high, but we still need to continue clarifying such misperceptions. An excellent post!
So far I have seen one quote from one schoolmate talking about one occasion and from that we have proof that he was “obviously mistreated”. Seems to me the evidence for autism is far greated than the “obviously mistreated” although I agree that autism diagnosis is far fetched and irrelevant even if it was true.
I don’t think the point was that he may have been autistic, but if he did, that it was untreated.
Untreated autistics can grow very, very distant and anti-social. Untreated high functioning autistics are often misdiagnosed as schizophrenics along with a raft of other personality disorders. Autism itself is not a mental disorder, persay, but certainly left untreated can LEAD to personality disorder.
Saying autism is not a mental illness
is functionally incorrect. When the
mental illness schizophrenia is now
determined to be developmental - it
appears in late adolescence as the brain and body mature, while autism manifests itself in childhood - when
autism was once termed “childhood
schizophrenia”, when both illnesses
originate in the brain, when both
conditions share many symptoms, when in
any case it is NOT a disgrace to be called “mentally ill”, you are making
a distinction that is not a distinction.
All of his socialization deficits (lack of facial expression, lack of vocal expression, limited speech) are symptoms of schizophrenia. He may have been misdiagnosed. Consider, for example, John Nash. His schizophrenia went unnoticed for years, because he just appeared to be Yet Another Autistic Spectrum Math Genius.
Fistly, I would like to thank you for putting this information out there, there is already an unfortunate backlash against Koreans, let’s hope there is not one against autistic individuals.
Secondly, I truely believe, and I had suspicions from Day 1, Cho may have had autism. And what I am most angry about is that even with all the information pouring into the media lately about autism, almost every person who described Cho described his aloofness, speech problems, social inadequacies as strange, wierd, or a loner. People, adults, need to grow up and realize autism is not a choice, and stop labeling people as wierd, loners, or strange because someone may not interact socially the way you may expect someone to.
Re MET’s post: I certainly agree that mental illness is no disgrace, and I apologize if that seemed to be part of what I was saying.
I do want to note that violent or suicidal tendencies are in no way a part of the diagnostic criteria for autism. (here is a link to the diagnostic criteria for autism: http://autism.about.com/od/whatisautism/a/DMVautism.htm).
Thanks,
Lisa (About.com Guide to Autism)
There will always be people who would view this thing to further whatever agendas they have, after reading various news reports and blogs, these are the agendas I have seen so far:
1. Anti-Gun
2. Anti Law Enforcement
3. Supporters of blame the authority
4. Video Game Voilence
5. Anti Immigrant
6. Advocates to Institutionalize the mentally ill.
What I haven’t found so far is a step by step reconstruction of Cho’s childhood to the adolescence and insights of his life beyond VTech esp. his family and extended family. Without the above it will be hard to say conclusively what led to the incident. He did exhibit symptoms of both paranoid schizophrenia and Autism.
Autism is a mental disorder, it is in the DSM-IV. Please do the research before you post!
I think that it Should be talked about. If Cho had autism, we need to do damage control. We can’t do that by hiding. We can’t make progress if people think all autistics could have the rage that Cho had.
From what I hear, Autism Speaks had a really good statement on their site…but it’s been removed. Just like CNN removed the word “autism” from their article posted yesterday, and substituted the words “mental illness.”
Autism has many comorbidities with it - many that you don’t see until after puberty hits - and this could also be the chance for us to push the legislature and our states to develop a REAL curriculum so that none of our kids ever end up in the same boat. A woman I know who works for the Pennsyvania Autism Task Force spends most of her time trying to help autistic kids who are in prison or juvenile homes because of things that happened to them stemming from not receiving services.
Cho was in his 20s. He was out of the system. Maybe this should also be something to discuss?
I think this is a thoughtful reply. Many of my students do not understand autism or how it works. It had nothing to do with the violence. The lack of understanding on peoples part MAY have led to mistreatment…but it is just one piece of a really big puzzle.
To Poster #8 (Reader) -
You probably won’t find anything unless his school has kept the records….remember, he was diagnosed right when they moved here from South Korea. They may not have spoken the language well, they may not have understood what he needed. And he may not have gotten it even if the school did understand.
His monotone voice and speech were very consistent with those of autistics. Also, according to reports, he was very obsessed with violent video games - and those stances you saw on the video were prime stances from Anime.
Re post #9 (from Moi) - the URL I included in my post (#7) specifically links to the official diagnostic criteria for autism. I have, indeed, done my research relative to diagnosis of autism.
MET and Moi are
The DSM IV is meant to confuse what autism really is and to hide the expected spike in the number of schizophrenics due to so many men fathering babies at 34 and above. This epidemic was expected. Men who father babies past the age of 32 are risking their children’s health and this should be openly discussed by those who do not want more autism, etc.
“Saying autism is not a mental illness
is functionally incorrect. When the
mental illness schizophrenia is now
determined to be developmental - it
appears in late adolescence as the brain and body mature, while autism manifests itself in childhood - when
autism was once termed “childhood schizophrenia”…”
MET and Moi are CORRECT I meant to write. Sorry.
Thank you Lisa!
Thank You!
Lisa, I think you are right to defend people with autism and to point out that violence is not a symptom or outcome of this disorder. However, in doing so, you have made a couple of errors. In reading your article “How is Autism Diagnosed?”, I see that you write, “The DMV-IV, which defines all known medical disorders for the purposes of diagnosis…” Are you referring to the DSM-IV? (I ask because you link to the ANI’s page which is quoting from the DSM.) The DSM-IV is the “Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.” While we may not like that every disorder in this manual is considered a “mental disorder,” it *is* the way our doctors, psychiatrists, etc., are categorizing them (right or wrong — that’s the way it is right now). The DSM does *not* define *all* medical disorders, as you state. So, and getting to my further point, to call depression a “mental illness” as well as a possible cause of violence is just as problematic as referring to autism in the same way. What I’m saying is, 1) People probably have this misunderstanding of autism because it is categorized as a “mental disorder,” and 2) I do feel there’s a problem in pointing the finger at depression in order to defend autism. I don’t mean to be overly critical or anything, Lisa, but I just want to point these things out (particularly the error re: the DSM) because it may clarify why people have these false ideas about autism. Best, Carrie
Carrie - thanks - I will look more deeply into the diagnostic issue and make corrections as appropriate!
Not having the understanding of oneself due to an unwanted “problem” and being able to comfort and to console oneself clearly show signs of deeply rooted problems that may have innocently or tragically been ignored. I want to say beforehand that I in no way believe that this is/was acceptable - but what I pick up on from the readings on this that I’ve done lead me to believe this man carried much too much rejection and hurt inside for far too long that it eventually had to surface again in such a tragic way as this. My personal history parallels this young man’s and it is earily familiar to my own feelings of rejection and humiliating feelings of deep shame brought on by unwarranted harrassing by those people he had to be around. That’s why he was considered a loner. Unlike this man (to the best of my memory) was that he seems to have been molested by a male figure. Where does a male in this great country of ours goo for help? By nature we are strong warriors that “take it like a man”.BS. Put on top of this the possibility of an autism spectrum disorder and the pressures and degradations that this man felt from his first day forward and you get a very volital mix. He certainly became severly twisted. Unfortunately for all those many people who were witness to this and who perished in this as well as to thier friends and families my heart goes out to you all. In my case I was acutely aware in college that I had a problem and needed psychological help that I took it upon myself to get some help. But we as a society can be so cruel to those who appear different and we look out for those weird one’s , don’t we?? If Cho was anything like me, he was the easy butt for jokes that many people derive some sick sense of pleasure (does anybody recogize sadism?) for talking about those less fortunate than themselves, and I’m talking within the same family (phamily, myspeak) He too flew above the current radar and their was no cohesive collaboration about this from the many who knew he had problems. Hindsight is 20/20.
Unfortunately those of us with aspergers syndrome will wind up walled in some institution where we can rot away away from ” life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” in luxury as only we Americans have the aptitude and the will to incarcerate the masses versus inclusion into the community face to face where we can see firsthand what goes on. We have become a nation of “mass communication babies” and passively we can revolve our lives around the big home sreen and/or maybe just bury our head in a “bye-bull” story. Whatever!!
These are just some thoughts for fodder after the most horrific killing fiasco this country has seen yet.
Thank you Lisa for your excellent, concise and sober(ing) commentary.
I hope this doesn’t come across as racist but it’s a fact Asian families traditionally don’t deal well with mental illness. His Aunt called him an “idiot” in her interview and they way she said it, it sounded like habit.
I would very much like to see an investigation into this boy’s childhood. I suspect his family has been ashamed of him a lot longer than since last Monday.
And that’s a horrible, tragic thought
The neurotoxin PERC tetrachloroethylene used by dry cleaners could have really had a horrible on Seung-Hui Cho on top of the problems he evidenced even before he came to the US at the age of eight.
Tetrachloroethylene exposure and risk of schizophrenia: Offspring of dry cleaners in a population birth cohort, preliminary findings
Mary C. Perrinb, , , Mark G. Oplera, b, Susan Harlapb, Jill Harkavy-Friedmanb, Karine Kleinhausa, Daniella Nahonc, Shmuel Fennigd, Ezra S. Sussera, b and Dolores Malaspinaa
aNew York State Psychiatric Institute, New York, New York, 10032, United States
bDepartment of Epidemiology, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York, New York, 10032, United States
cMental Health Services Section, Israel Ministry of Health, Tel Aviv, Israel
dShalvata Mental Health Center affiliated with the Department of Psychiatry, Sackler School of Medicine, Tel Aviv University, Ramat Aviv, Israel
Received 7 June 2006; revised 26 September 2006; accepted 27 September 2006. Available online 17 November 2006.
Abstract
Tetrachloroethylene is a solvent used in dry cleaning with reported neurotoxic effects. Using proportional hazard methods, we examined the relationship between parental occupation as a dry cleaner and risk for schizophrenia in a prospective population-based cohort of 88,829 offspring born in Jerusalem from 1964 through 1976, followed from birth to age 21–33 years. Of 144 offspring whose parents were dry cleaners, 4 developed schizophrenia. We observed an increased incidence of schizophrenia in offspring of parents who were dry cleaners (RR = 3.4, 95% CI, 1.3–9.2, p = 0.01). Tetrachloroethylene exposure warrants further investigation as a risk factor for schizophrenia.
Keywords: Dry cleaning; Schizophrenia; Tetrachloroethylene; Perchloroethylene; Perc
Corresponding author. Department of Epidemiology, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, 722 West 168th Street, Room 1715, New York, New York 10032, United States. Tel.: +1 212 342 0173; fax: +1 212 342 5170.
AutismLink’s rebuttal was most definitely NOT doing more harm than good. We have been thanked by hundreds of parents across the U.S. for putting our statement out there. Our statement clearly said that autism was NOT the reason for Cho’s violent behavior — that he had several comorbid diagnoses.
To say that AutismLink “maybe have done more harm than good” is inaccurate and inappropriate. We were responding to the media.
Several of this boy’s relatives, aunts, uncles and cousins, have ALL SAID, according to media reports, that he was dx’d with autism when he came to the U.S. Fearing the obvious backlash, AutismLink was the ONLY organization that came forward to refute the inaccuracies depicted by the media regarding the manifestations of autism.
I would caution you not to blame an autism organization run by ALL PARENTS for attempting to stop the media carnage.
The media is continuing on this path, by the way. Geraldo was on fox news last night talking about how the “autism” was a factor. The responsible thing to do is respond, not put our heads in the sane. Let’s educate them.
Cindy Waeltermann,
www.AutismLink.com
This is a long argued issue which affects many races, religion, political, sexual preferences, disabled; the actions of one does not depict the whole. Unfortunately, all it takes is one for society to form those stereotypes.
We are very fortunate to have such forums to help us deal with any tragedy. We all have to keep in mind with any tragedy is we do not know all the facts and the media doesn’t always get things correct. But no matter how we vent here, very little of it is going to change societies stereotyping behaviors. The only people who generally come to these forums are those some how related to autism. The generally public may never know this great forum is here.
That said. autism is considered a neurological disorder and the only area that considers it mental illness would be insurance companies. If autism is classified as mental illness, most insurance companies wont cover it. Insurance companies is a whole other battle, and that’s where the mental illness comes from and as long as people keep terming autism in that manner, the fight for insurances to cover therapies may never happen. The fact is, if it was a mental illness, then mercury injury would not hold true. A genetic cause would be more plausible. Another fact is, since we have no real concrete known causes for autism, we really cant generally say if it is neurological or mental illness. If we are solely considering autism, triggers for it, I would suggest then all of the human population would be at risk of mental illness, not just children.
As for the man who shot all these people, his possible diagnoses. Triggers in life can cause a person to have many issues. He may have been mis-diagnosed as so many are and this was more so back in the 1990’s and prior to that year. many things can cause lack of speech and ‘coldness’. I doubt he ever had a MRI or EGG. He may have. back in those days, so little was mainstream medically for these such things. Above and beyond any diagnoses he may have had, he fit the profile of previous other serial killers. In history, otherwise passive people have killed the ones who bullied them. A father murder’s his whole family and walks away….. past serial killers have also been dissected and maybe never prior diagnosed with anything, were thought they had to have this or that.
If he did have let’s say an autism spectrum disorder, how autism affected this man was individual. Above any diagnoses, he was still a person and many parts of his life from childhood on could have affected his adult life, just as those same things would affect my life, your life and any ones live. The horribly sad thing if you believe everything you read, is the red flags missed. Opportunities for stepping in were not taken and there is a mother and other relatives not only in disbelief their son did this, but that they ‘missed’ something too and I imagine for many close to the situation, this will haunt them.
I choose not to associate this horrible act to my child although it does make me want to pry into his thoughts all the more. I know, you may know and they may know, my child’s autism is his and affects him in ways that does not affect your child. Genetics also plays a large part of personality regardless and I think my son got his horrible temper from his dad! But, my son is not just autism, he is a person. Educating and making the public aware of autism is a difficult task considering it affects all differently. Anyone with media contacts should start up articles about the great art work many can do, how some are just math or reading whizzes, how some now deceased geniuses also had autistic traits and how many of us seem to have a little in us as well. Not all are going to become great, not all are going to become criminals, we have to real way to predict any ones future or future actions, autism or not. Mental illness or not.
Something went horribly wrong with this man. THIS man. he needs to be treated and thought of as an individual, not as a ‘community’ within a possible disorder.
I am getting annoyed by what some aspergers are writing on sites. They also said that autistics aren’t known for violence. That’s not true. That’s why Risperdal,an antipsychotic has been approved to treat violent behaviors in autistics. It makes me wonder do people on the autistic spectrum disorders read about their own condition and how it varies in people. I also wonder about They contribute his violent behavior in schizophrenia. Many schizophrenics aren’t violent either. There are different types of schizophrenia(disorganized,catatonic,paranoid,and residual.
When I first read about Cho’s not talking to people,problems with communication and social interaction, I thought that he might have had an autistic spectrum disorder too, but the schizophrenia fit too. The symptoms can be similar. I just didn’t think that he was bipolar. That didn’t jive with me. I knew that there was something more to it.
What gets me is the psychiatrists didn’t know that Cho had autistic spectrum disorder when they saw him when he was in college! Shouldn’t these people have known?? That’s the problem that I pointed out in posts that I have written. Developmental Disorders are highly misunderstood. The psychiatrists didn’t know about my learning disability issues and thought my Dyslexic-related cluttering was psychotic speech,and no testing was even done. After testing years later by neurologists including famous Dr. Harold N. Levinson, I was acknowledged to have neurological problems and was diagnosed Dyslexic,Dyspraxic and confirmed to not have a psychotic disorder.
Schools should have known that he was autistic. He had the symptoms. Did they forget that autistics can be high functioning. Many autistics are of above average intelligence. But a lot of people equate autism with mental retardation. A lot of autistics are misdiagnosed as mentally retarded because IQ tests they give them aren’t right for them because they are extremely visual thinkers…even more so than Dyslexics.
I can see how Cho could have a developed a victimization/persecution complex….many people with a developmental disorders who have been teased and picked on have been have developed issues from being mistreated. I can relate myself…like I said before, I grew up being teased and put down for my speech speech and being different too(being called “retard” by normal school children when I was in special education and being called faggot because of my high pitched voice,softspoken voice and misdiagnosis of schizoaffective bipolar disorder because of my dylexic-related cluttering speech) and I developed anger issues. A lot of the abuse that I had from my parents was misunderstanding,intolerance,criticism,and frustration of my Dyslexic,Dyspraxic,AD/HD issues. If my classmates knew the truth about special education past,they would have teased me any more. I kept my special education past a secret,and so I had my own trust issues. I even kept my past secret from females that I like. I didn’t want them to reject me for being “special”
There is no telling how more bad treatment Cho would have had if middle school and high school classmates knew that he was autistic. Maybe Cho was better off in a special school in the first place. But the guy was very intelligent…he almost graduated from Virginia Tech. Heck..I am only a high school graduate myself. He accomplished a lot more than I did in school. He probably had a high IQ than me, but his emotional IQ is a lot lower.
autistic or schizophrenic, he had no right to harm and kill others. What he did should not cause a backlash prejudice against the mentally ill nor people with developmental disorders. I am hoping that it doesn’t. There are autistics are worrying about Cho’s connection with autism,and they are even denying that Cho is autistic but he’s just schizophrenic. They are quick to claim people like Bill Gates as autistic but not people who commit violent crimes. I find that ridiculous and hypocritical.
Re Comment #22 from AutismLink
I am a huge fan of the work of AutismLink, and the site is often cited and linked to on mine.
My concern was that the press release was out and around the Internet before there was any confirmation of a diagnosis of autism. To me, it seemed that it precipitated a lot of speculation and anxiety before we had much information available to make sense of what was really the case. In that sense, I think it did have an impact that was not wholly positive. So it was not at all the content of the press release that concerned me, but rather the timing.
Thanks for your note.
If Cho’s autism had been cured, this probably would have been avoided. That’s what the country needs to learn from this. Autism is curable. Visit www.generationrescue.org to learn the truth about autism.
If the dx can be confirmed, I would prefer everyone just speak openly about it. I am so sick of the latest trend of everyone looking at the future through rose colored glasses and speculating that Einstein and Newton etc. were one the spectrum. As if this means parents don’t need to be worried because both men “grew out of it”. Bull!! This is a serious disorder that is getting far too little attention. The fact that the mental health professionals who worked with him have not confirmed or denied his dx shows how poorly trained everyone is to deal with ASD. Here in the U.S. we are just now starting to deal with it. Should anyone be surprised that it was considered an embarrassment in Korea?
One more question to ponder. If his autism went untreated, it would certainly lead to further problems (disgnosed or not). So if untreated autism played ANY role in leading up to this, does that mean the networks will have to discuss potential causes, including mercury? Even while they rake in huge advertising dollars from the pharmecueticals? Maybe when that part of the discussion starts, they’ll cut to a viagra commercial
Jay
Fairfax County Public Schools in Virginia has a notorious reputation for very bad services for children with autism during the years that Cho attended their schools. A charter school plan was proposed by parents of children with autism in 2003 that would finally offer a hope that their children might get the services they need. An informational meeting at Cub Run Elementary School, the school closest to the Cho home, was held on November 11th. The PTA members were up in arms with “not in my backyard” concerns. The PTA president sent out an email to all the other PTA presidents in the county (I have a copy) desperately asking for help to stop this program.
It annoys me to no end when media/family, etc BLAME an unexcusable act of violence on autism. Autism itself isn’t a violent disorder. I am an adult with autism. I was picked on as a child, and a teen. I didn’t get services until I was 19. My parents refused to admit that I had a problem. They always thought I was just slow, or dumb. I never would have resorted to violence. I am simply NOT a violent person. Autism doesn’t make someone violent, nor would it cause someone to “go over the edge.” Maybe his family needs to stop pointing fingers at the disability and start pointing fingers at Cho, or maybe look into how he was raised, which is more likely to cause violence than autism is.
I agree with Jayme # 28..
Rhonda
This is one of the most ignorant posts of a healthcare professional that I have ever seen…However I do not want to give the impression that Autistic children are dangerous . The fact is they are not given the treatment that is desperately needed in our country. I am not an expert, however I have a daughter with ASD and two nephews and a niece with Aspergers and I often talk with my sisters concerning this factor of how ridculed and isolated they are and the rate of depression. This factor can be found at http://suicideandmentalhealthassociationinternational.org/aspinfo.html
Also do keep in mind that that the majority do commit suicide and do not have violent tendencies but with the current media exposure one can only suppose that this will change. Regardless of what illness our children have the needs of healthcare have to not only be addressed but changed if we want this current trend to change…My love and prayers to ALL families involved in this tradgedy!!!!
Certainly there were numerous red flags in Cho’s history…there were numerous ones while at VA Tech, that we know. And the red flags were not…”he is quiet”…or “he’s not the life of the party” and so on…the red flags were he won’t make eye contact, he acts in a way that actually scared many students–most at VA Tech did not pick on him because they found him so strange–they even saw him as “fragile” and there are those who did try to reach out to him. He acted socially inappropriate. He had an imaginary girlfriend. These things were known yet the student did not get treatment. Autism, Asperger’s can certainly have co-existing disorders and often do. I agree with the person above who wrote that why must there be defensiveness about Cho having possible or probable autistic/asperger features and avoid that by pointing to depression or bipolar illness, or whatever. Also, I think it’s fair enough to say that clincal depression, bipolar disorder, ADHD and so on ARE neurological in nature. Yes, they are called “mental disorders” in the DSM, but they are still neurological disorders. It’s as if there is a panic amongst those who have whatever disorder (whether it be autism, asperger’s, bipolar, clinical depression, you name it) to say, Cho did NOT have whatever I may have or my child may have. Well, it appears he did have PDD and other co-existing disorders (AND WAS NOT TREATED AT ANY POINT THAT WE KNOW OF. To try to understand what happened with this boy is important.) What I think is horrible is to call a person with PDD and other possible coexisting mental disorders a “cold-blooded murderer” and then to assume he is a total psychopath with no other issues going on. That’s not fair to Cho and it’s not educational at all either. There were, in fact, numerous red flags and we do well to pay attention to red flags and to take them seriously.
Instead of pointing fingers at those who are preceived as being different we should really look at our own attitudes towards oddballs.
I wonder what percentage of ‘normal’ people will demonstrate violent behaviour after coping with a lifetime of physical and/or psycological bullying and taunting. If this guy was autistic and if his differences made him a target for abuse, then I hope those who taunted will find a way to wash the blood from their own hands.
The major learning point seems to be…when a person is having mental health/neurological difficulties… the types of difficulties that Cho was having…and had been having, and that person does not receive treatment (and perhaps never a correct diagnosis), then the mental health system has failed that person. Our culture has failed that person and we all pay an exorbitant price. That is the critical issue, I think. It seems clear that taunting and teasing occurred in middle school and probably high school, but not so much at VA Tech–students went out of their way to accomodate Cho there. They worried about him. They told teachers about their concerns. They told the police their concerns. They tried to include him in activities. Students are NOT mental health specialists and can’t be expected to be. Good gosh, the English professor taught him a full course one on one. Sadly, while the effort was kind-hearted, it was not treatment. How many colleges would take one student out of class and teach that particular student one on one? and not pursue what in the world caused that student to not be able to be in a regular university class? Knowing that if he stayed in the regular class that the other students would not attend. Those other students were truly disturbed by Cho’s behavior which only worsened as he did NOT get treatment which only alienated him further. Our universities are not known for having the best staffed mental health services. Did anyone watch the Senate proceedings (interviewing the panel of experts) last night on C-Span? It was most productive, much wisdom from that panel (esp. the director of Mental Health Services at UVA.) Hopefully some good will come of it. If Cho was so in need of one to one teaching (in a university setting) then surely it seems that the said university had plenty of leeway (legally) to require him to have treatment, too, if he was to stay at VA Tech. The saddest thing is that he did not receive treatment that he needed and that he needed from the beginning, as a young child. This should be a wake-up call to all in the mental health field, within our gov’t, schools, to parents…that early intervention, that appropriate intervention, that correct diagnosis (es) and treatment is critical.
Much unhealthy stuff is going on on our college campuses socially. I ask…where are the adults? There are not enough–for any student. If anyone would like to know the general social environment on our campuses, pick up a copy of Laura Stepp’s book, Unhooked. She nails it. We all as adults in this country need to wake up to what is happening to all our kids once they are “on their own” on campuses across the U.S.
Mother of autistic child (Asperger’s) high functioning with interwinable conditions related - which are - obsessive compulsive disorger (OCD) not hand washing, but obsessive behavor with projects (inventive)these obessions may be only for the day, or maybe for months or years. Anti social behavor, etc. He also has (IED) - Intermittant Explosive Disorder which leads to various incidents in rage, towards objects, and sometimes people (mostly mom and sister) however if pushed enough by other people - several times toward other individuals. He also has a diagnosis of ADHD. Do not tell me autistic children with underlying conditions - can not cause violence.
As I look into my enraged child eyes, I have many times thought (before this incident) that my son could possible be the next Albert Einstein or the next school shooter. He is 8 years old. My son wasn’t born autistic. He seemed to “develope” it. So depending on what side of the arguement you are on - some say it is neurological and some say it is a mental disease. I choose to believe in my research is that is neurological. 1 and 150 children are now born with autism or will develope it - those that “develope” it - seem to
develope it in the range of 14 to 26 months. Most on the high functioning level seem to be very intellegent, and go undiagnosed, and are viewed as difficult odd children. Some view them as undisciplined. Some parents are in denial that there is any condition at all that exists in their children. I have only recently heard that the school shooter in this incident was diagnosed with autism in his early years, but was left untreated. No one in the news industry really has picked up on this, it really has been hushed up or ignored completely. People seem to want to ignore Austism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). More children are diagnosed with ASD daily than cancer, diabeties and HIV, combined - but still hushed up. When polio started affecting Americans - with 1 to 3000, there was a public outcry for a vacination for it. The stats for ASD is 1 in 150 and for boys I believe 1 in 96. There have been no girl school shooters. My husband wants to put a my sons hand on a gun at the age of 12 for deer hunting - I am totally opposed to that, and I will win that war. All I can do is try to protect other persons is to win that battle with my husband. Why is autism being ignored by the government and by the American people. Why do various controversial theory’s on where autism “develops” from? Not all autistic children have the propensity for violence - true and untrue. If you have ever scene my autistic child have a “meltdown” you may change your mind about it. Not all people who shoot other people are autistic. But, I myself would like to find out more about these school shooters and besides being loners - as to look at early childhood and behavors as younger children. So people do need to wake up - and to speak to a parent whose child is the autism spectrum and ask them how they feel if their child has violent enraged episodes and than we will talk, and of course once again, be ignored.