Autism and Violence: Is Fear of Autism Harming Our Children?

While any one can turn to violence having any disorder, or having none at all. As in the legal cases where asperger’s is reason of defense, I disagree with it’s use in that manner, more so when the nanny was lured and then killed. This case is going on in the state where I live. That man had all the time to remove his ad and it was clear to be premeditated since he had no use of a nanny. It annoys me how a legal defense will use ‘recently discovered’ disabilities for the hope of no liability.

One way to handle this may be is to direct attention to the person, not to the disorder. It will be hard to sway away from the newly created stereo typing that attorneys are creating. Many kids have autism and asperger’s yet they don’t end up killing anything including a bug.

Many private day cares would had turned away my son as well and the last one he was at it was more a meeting of our two minds that decided there were not capable of accommodating him or providing for his needs. I myself would rather they came right out and told me they were not equipped for a child with autism than to agree to have him there, made him miserable only to find out they were not equipped. I don’t really consider that a stereo type of autism, most day cares and pre schools are not equipped for any child with a disability as such.

The key for us is to help our kids understand rules and laws and how to solve problems they have. Yet any child can have a great upbringing and the parents end up shocked that their child committed a violent offence.

Autism is a behavioral symptom, not a disease. If you create a disease which doesn’t exist by virtue of a term which describes a symptom common to many different genetic defects, congenital defects, and fetal trauma such as fetal alcohol syndrome, then you are pretty much guaranteed to create wary service providers who are unsure of what they are getting into. Are they dealing with a child who would a generation ago been called “retarded”, or are they dealing with a child who a generation ago would have been mainstreamed but considered weird? Someone who is retarded needs a totally different kind of strategy than for instance a high functioning autism or Asperger’s (which is probably only a shade of difference between those last two). If your child appears capable of learning, but totally absorbed in self, your child is probably not retarded, and probably will eventually be able to be mainstreamed. If there is a reasonable possibility of your child being mainstreamed someday, labeling your child as “autistic” within your community will hang an albatross around your child’s neck. I once made the mistake of revealing to co-workers that I had Asperger’s and I immediately went from being treated as an oracle to being treated like I was retarded and eventually ended up losing the job.
The murderers with autism in the media are what you get when you call a disease by the name of a symptom. Certain brain defects probably are more likely to cause what you could call “chimpanzee”-like primitive behavior, but now since that person has been labeled “autistic” instead of “retarded” or as having congenital brain damage, you are stuck with your “autistic” child getting lumped in with the same infamous group.

The problem isn’t the headlines.

It is the suppression of the truth about severe autism challenges that causes problems.

It is avoiding the reality of these challenges, avoiding provision of effective evidence based ABA intervention that hurts autistic children and increases the likelihood of situations like these.

It is the ideology (neurodiversity) which says that autism is beautiful and should not be treated or cured that causes problems like these.

It is the failure to research and find safe, effective treatments and cures that causes these problems.

It is the failure to acknowledge that autism is a disorder which, in some cases, can include violent behavior, which causes or contributes to tragic results like these.

I’m sorry, but why does ABA always have to come up? ABA does not help all kids, not every one can afford it and the statement
“It is the failure to research and find safe, effective treatments and cures that causes these problems” is more or less blaming the parents as well as the medical community. You’re never going to hurry a cure any time soon. ABA in no way can predict or prevent a child from becoming violent. Now maybe if ABA continues into the teen years and adult years….and that’s a big maybe. Maybe the they needed some medication?

To include the neurodiversity community is also unfair, if anything people who are higher functioning are the best and greatest example of what their parents and the medical community did right.

If there is a media sort to blame, it will be those that present video’s of kids with autism doing nothing but having meltdowns all day long. Granted, some kids do have meltdowns all day long but many do not.

The fact is, without knowing the history of any of these media stories that contain such things: it was THAT child who had a disability who did THAT act. That person’s act does not depict all with that disorder.

Violence no link to Autism! given the wrong circumstances I feel anyone could be… Television and video images of people with autism often include images of aggressive behavior. This, coupled, with the recent murder stories, seems likely to raise walls – making inclusion and social success even tougher for us all… some people have even told my son they are scared of him because he has aspergers, lucky we feel sorry for the individuals saying this as obviously they have no clue ::)

What has murder got to do what autism, the press are the ones really at fault here, many people commit murder for various reasons, so to link it to autism is so wrong. Do they put every time a neuro typical person murders someone, just an average person murdered someone, as there are a lot more of them, who should we be wary of!!!

We are as deserve and different as those not on the autism spectrum, our biggest problem continues to be not being understood or allowed in general. If society chooses to continue to not accept, ignore the people behind just a word “autism” of course some will hit out from time to time, but until society teachers everyone about diversity and difference, many will continue to be excluded who otherwise could lead fulfilling lives…

Their is no excuse for murder I agree and there is no excuse for the way many ASD children individuals are treated daily often from shear ignorance. Often like myself it starts at school the continuous bulling and we end up retreating and living like I did for many years in the shadows, not being embrace for who we are, or having the confidence to be self. I now know of course I am just a unique differently able individual, but its taken me half a life time to find self and rebuild the confidence I should of be given as a child.
Aspergers Parallel Planet

This has nothing to do with neurodiversity. And neurodiversity is about accepting the disorder or symptoms and treating them appropriately, and treating the people with the symptoms with respect. It’s not about not treating it and saying autism is perfect. I’ve heard people attack those that support neurodiversity accusing them of being against ABA when they get their children ABA. I’ve read people accuse bloggers with profoundly autistic children of having high functioning children. Harold, from what I’ve read, you and the neurodiversity bloggers have a lot more in common than either of you would like to think. Yes there are a few that are anti-ABA. Most of these are adults and were exposed to adversives, or were adults who were told they would never succeed because they had not received ABA. That is not away to promote the use of ABA. And they are right that ABA is not the only way. It’s simply the only way that has extensive studies proving its effectiveness.

Frankly I’m all for easier access to ABA. Therapy based largely on ABA works quite well for my son. but that’s largely because reward systems work quite well for him. Because autism is a set of symptoms with different causes, that won’t be the case for everybody.

But this blog post has nothing to do with any of that. It has to do with media portrayal of autism, and I hate to break it to you, but what media portrayal I have seen in the US is extremely negative. I don’t know what goes on in Canada, but here, it’s not neurodiversity that’s getting pushed. Maybe I should move to Canada and you should move here. People do base ‘autism’ on their own individual exposure, and treating it like a disease rather than a set of symptoms does nothing to help.

That said, I would like to see the mentally, neurologically and developmentally ill get treatment before they go through through our justice system, or as they enter the justice system rather than have the book thrown at them. While there are some cases of people using a disorder as a scapegoat there are other cases where having the disorder affects them, and whether or not that disorder has anything to do with what they did, they should receive treatment, just as a person with diabetes or a heart condition in the justice system should receive treatment. It’s not all black and white. There are many people who’s disabilities do effect their actions without being legally insane. We should be able to treat those that need it while understanding not everyone with the disorder will be a problem. Sadly, this is not the case.

Just an extra comment to my one above….
people on or off the autism spectrum have mental disorders… being neurologically differently minded does not mean we necessarily have an co morbid conditions which in fact is not autism and any one can have. Just as anyone could do harm to others, most ASD people I know are less aggressive in general.

As a child I use to like to line up all my jelly babies, mind you as a child I spent many hours lining things up, making some sort of sense, order. Maybe that was because the only part of my life I could control, and in those moments with my jelly babies or what ever in neat lines, often colour coordinated I had to even eat in a certain way and it really upset me if others bit the heads off, nearly always non ASD people!

ASD children are the ones nearly always being bullied, not bulling others so as for being aggressive we are usually the opposite. Its the bullies we should be looking at, the ones that at times push people to extremes…
ASD people often have a connection with animals and children and are very caring not just seeing but sensing how others feel, thats why as someone has mentioned above often not even wanting to harm a bug…
AsPlanet.info

Could these headlines be having a negative impact on our children with autism? My guess is that the answer is “yes.”

Could I suggest that this has an impact on adults with autism as well? The “parent-first” language of autism isn’t as inclusive as we should be.

Does this impact people with autism (be they young or old)? Yes. When they write imlying as though it was the fact that the kid was autistic that was a factor in the murders, yes. When they leave out that either (a) it was something other than than the autism or (b) the fact that the autism wasn’t well managed, yes, it is a problem.

What REALLY doesn’t help is the attempts by some people to use this for political gain. There is one REALLY bad blog post out there and, frankly, Mr. Doherty’s comments aren’t helpful either.

Education seems to be the answer for so many things. Right now, the education many are receiving is that one person with Autism and one person with Aspergers have each done a serious crime.

I know that before having a son with Aspergers, I only knew of the profound Autistic who was completely non communicative and did not seem to live in the same world as his parents and those creating the film. Now that I’ve done more reading, I know things are sometimes like that, but not necessarily.

People were afraid to eat tomatoes because they knew they were all poisonous. They were taught otherwise. Some people are probably afraid of others who are on the spectrum – and hopefully, a number of those can be taught the reality which we know.

MC said “Could I suggest that this has an impact on adults with autism as well? The “parent-first” language of autism isn’t as inclusive as we should be.”

Thank you for pointing this out. I agree, and as and adult with Asperger’s Syndrome, I can only emphasize the importance of creating positive images of adults and children with ASDs in the media. People are often wary of the unknown and there needs to be a lot more public eduaction to increase awareness of what having an ASD really entails. Hopefully then the public will have a more realistic perspective even when the media sensationalizes the autism spectrum.

We have two cases of someone with an ASD allegedly committing murder making the headlines in recent years–far below the national murder rate. The cases make the headlines because of sensationalism, not because it is a common occurrence. Of course this has a negative effect on how children w/ASD are perceived by members of the community, and in that way is harmful to children w/ASD.

But do these headlines create a more-negative impression in the mind of the community than the ways parents speak of and characterize their children w/ASD? Or the way parents’ groups sometimes excuse or justify the abuse or even murder of children w/ASD? Or the way parents will often attack, harass, and attempt to silence people w/ASD simply for not agreeing with them?

Why are we discussing these headlines instead of ongoing problems that are harmful to children w/ASD?

There have been many more cases than just these two- but the question really is, is do parents generally allow their kids to hear about such crimes to begin with? With these many stories in the news, when the public hears our child or sister with an autism disorder, does the public automatically think:’Oh, that person may be violent’. Most times people fear the word autism just out of not knowing really what it is, than the behaviors of it.

We who are part of the autism community hear about these articles all the time. Even in the state where I live, the craigslist killer isn’t even real big news (the diagnosis was rejected by the judge by the way)

I would have to agree, this topic should be about the crime, not the disorder.

Reporters have obviously got nothing better to do than link violent crime with autism, how ridiculous! If there are a couple of violent crimes committed by doctors or people with acne, does that mean that being a doctor or having acne means that you are violent? No! It really does make me angry, this kind of reporting, because it’s so harmful. There are enough stereotypes in the world of autism, without violence being added!

Here in Norway, Asperger syndrome is rarely mentioned in newspapers except in connection with crime. I consider it a serious problem.

The problem isn’t the headlines.

It is the failure to understand and accept reality that causes problems.

It is avoiding the challenges, and listening to dull-witted psychopaths tells us that our kids are mercury poisoned and vaccine injured, that is hurting children’s chances of success.

It is the ideology that portrays autistics as “train wrecks” and objects of pity that causes problems like these.

It is the failure of the news and entertainment media to close the door on the discredited and destructive idea that vaccines causes autism, when we should be changing the popular narrative to accommodation and acceptance, that causes these problems.

It is the failure to acknowledge that when we tell our kids that they need to be cured, it sends a message that they are not worthy of acceptance, that is causing these problems.

I think it is a combination of a lack of awareness of autism and what it really is and people’s stereotyped views. I can’t say I agree with the whole “cure” idea making children feel that they are not accepted as who they are. You can love and accept your child the way they are while looking for a way to alleviate their problems and symptoms.

It depends on what symptoms you are trying to alleviate. There is a huge difference between treating an ear infection with antibiotics and treating autism with chelating agents.

I guess it depends whether that treatment is treating your child’s autism successfully.

My thoughts are that people just do not understand autism, especially high functioning. This misinformation has harmed many children. My son is 12 and is high functioning and mainstreamed. He started middle school this year. He came from a small elementary school where all accepted him for who he is. Unfortunately, going to middle school where he didnt know 80% of the kids he was bullied severely for being different and called weird. It was his decision at the beginning of the year to not let everyone know about his diagnosis because he didnt want to be viewed as different. What a mistake. He didnt understand social situations and what real friends are. He was taught to keep a journal from when he was little to help as a release outlet for his feelings. He had kept journals on and off for years, sometimes not using it for months. The bullying was becoming so severe, and he was hiding this from us thinking that we would make it worse, he wrote in a journal at school and lost the book at the school. The book was found and he had a list of names of kids that were bullying him. At first he named the list, “list of enemies” then crossed that out and wrote “hit list”. This was just his way of writing down his frustrations and getting it out. For goodness sake he also had 2 professional wrestlers on the list who he didnt like winning matches. As all can guess, this has become a big deal in this town. All parents of children in the midle school were notified by email, written letter and on the educational line of the incident. The school agreed that this was a manifestation of his disability and no harm was ever to come of this. No discipline was given from the school. A little too late for this, the township police became involved and now it has gone to the prosecutor’s office and my son is being formally charged with terroristic threats. We have since been to therapists and psychiatrists who all agree that he was never a harm to himself or others and this was his way of getting some of the stress of being bullied off of his chest, since he didnt think he could tell anyone. The prosecutor was given all of my childs school records of his ABA therapy and his progress and was notified that the school supports our son and wants him to return to school. It didnt matter, he still is going ahead with the charges. I feel that there is so much education needed out there. People do not understand high functioning autism, aspergers, and the lack of social skills. We are at a loss for what to do. We have a great lawyer for our son, but why does he have to go through this? He never was or ever will be violent. So yes the fear of violence and autism is harming our children. The real perpetrators are the bullies but nothing is being done about that. Where can we go from here? How do we get our message out there to educate people so this does not happen to other autistic children?

My son is 25 and has high functioning Autism. Although he gets frustrated at times he would not hurt a fly! Literally he picks bugs up and throws them outside because he knows I hate them but will not harm them. He opens doors for everybody and is the sweetest person you will ever meet, so please do not stereotype people, this is a dangerous precedence. He has no social life outside his family and that can’t be easy for anyone but he copes. More research on this problem has to be done and I dont believe labels help these kids but it is strange how so many do display the same types of symtoms that are common characteristics among austistic people.

My Asperger’s 11 year old step son came to visit for the holidays 3 days: Here are some highlights:

He threw temper tantrums, crying and screaming on the floor and punched the puppy

He demanded that I “cater to him” and stop telling him to get his own drink when he’s thirsty.

He raised his fist in my face (He’s 5′7 at 11 years old)and threatened to “smash my face in” if I didn’t “follow his orders”

While my 9 year old was watching TV, hed grabbed a big leather pillow and repeatedly banged it against the couch near my son’s head and threatened to “beat him to death” and “cut his balls off and shove them down his throat.”

He threatened me that he will “snap” and kill his sister “one of these days” because he’s “filled with hatred.”

He told me that he wants to kill himself. He said he hates himself. He said no one loves him and that he wants to kill everyone.

He said he has “so much anger bottled up” that he’s going to “explode and kill his family”, except his mom because “she’s my slave”

He asked for a hug and then squeezed me so hard that I thought he would break my ribs.

He got a Christmas present (that he picked out)–when he opened it, the said he hated it and that he will “smash it in our face until it breaks”

He’d ask me to make him a sandwich and when I served it to him he threw it at me.

He asked for ham and threw it at me because “I made it too hot”

He demanded something to eat and when I took the time to make it for him and serve him, he’d say he wasn’t hungry.

He refused to eat the nice dinner my husband cooked and demanded McDondalds or he would “smash my head in”

He ate popsicles and threw the sticks on the floor.

He blew his nose and threw the used tissues at us.

He said that he wants to have a dead end job and work in food service so he can live with his “slave” (his mother) and have her “wait on him hand and foot forever.”

He continually made violent comments, like “I’ll punch you in the nuts” or I’ll “smash your face in”

People need to be afraid of these kinds of kids. Stop making excuses and coddling these monsters. Discipline them now before they hurt themselves or others. Austim is not an excuse to let your kids behave like wild animals. I’m sick of the excuses parents and “professionals” make for these kids. They’re spoiled brats who think they deserve special treatment because of Asperger’s.

Your step son does not even begin to represent the majority of people with Asperger’s Syndrome. Do you know anything about where he lived before becoming your step-son? Do you know if he was previously abused?

This behavior is EXTREMELY rare in people on the Autism spectrum. I suspect there has been something much more serious that happened in your step son’s past to cause such terrifying behavior.

So please stop saying things like children with Autism are monsters and such. For all you know, your step son may know how to manipulate psychologists, and was wrongly diagnosed. This behavior has to be coming from a place of a lot of pain.

Get your step son the help he needs. I’m almost certain he’s responding to some form of abuse, based on his controlling behavior. He might have been sexually abused, where do you think he learned a threat such as, “I’ll cut your balls off and shove them down your throat!” from?

Your son IS NOT reflective of the majority of people on the Autism spectrum. Sounds to me you’ve gotten your step son a pityable diagnoses, and using that to seek pity, rather than deal with the more challenging task of getting him the help he needs. There is only one monster I’m seeing here, a mother who is spreading fear propaganda about Autism.

Finally SOMEONE has the guts to speak the truth! Stop coddling these monstors is spot on, and I think they should think about some type of brain surgery to remove the aggression in these individuals if medications do not work, as so may have said, medications do not work. Surgery to remove the aggression in the brain should be explored. Wishing you the best, and please make yourself and the other children’s safety your UTMOST PRIORITY

Aspiestepmom I doubt you will ever come back to this site ever again. You are a hate filled woman, if any of this is true I am sure you did the correct thing and got his dad and you to seek help for him. It is obvious if this is the case and if he actually even exists that you realized he was being harmed by his mum in the home. Also I am sure you would probably smack his head in due to your tone you hate filled excuse for a human being. People need to be afraid of you not children,

I am sorry , but the mom who mentioned the 11 year old is right. I just had to end a new relationship with a mom with a 5 year old with “autism” due to the exact same behavior. He is dangerous and will definitely do something horrible one day (soon). This kid might have autism, but I am thinking its more CDD than autism. He’s sociopathic, and dangerous.

I don’t know what CCD is, but please. Is there a mod here? Can’t you do something about these horrible people suggesting Autistic people are violent sociopaths? Do you even know what sociopathy is? It requires a proficient ability at social skills. That should be an obvious clue that this isn’t Autism we’re dealing with here.

I agree with you and I also sense alot of anger on this forum by the mothers who have these children. They want to attack other people’s opinions because somehow it makes them feel better about their plight. The truth is hard for them to take, Deb, as you said, you needed to break off the relationship so no harm would come to your child. You did a smart thing.

My brother killed my mum. He has AS. I came here looking for other such stories and I guess I found them. Maybe they become violent due to being misunderstood I don’t know. He was very depressed and I think this was linked to his autism. His life was going nowhere and my mum treated him like a child.

hi my son is 13 has aspergers and touretts as well as a physical illness eds i as his parent is finding it hard to get the school to help my son is having a lot of rage attacks in past he has took it out on me i am scared sometimes of how he is going to react the school are making it worse as on one occasion he was rocking in his chair an the teacher said he delibrately distracted the class room which was not the truth so he got put in isolation for it and on a recent occasion he got bullied by two lads but because he ended up hurting them both due to is rage they now are saying he premeditated it which is not the case when he was kicked and threatened he aint a child who goes around looking for trouble my main fear is he wont back down when goated ive asked for him to go on some sort of med to calm his rages down as i fear he will loose it one day am at my wits ends can anyone guide me on what to do next

Hi Denise, I’m sorry to hear about your son. The teachers that you are referring to clearly don’t know anything about AS. Yes he will get frustrated and angry when he is misunderstood or bullied, that’s a given. The only way forward is for people to understand him. This is much harder than it should be. He would benefit greatly from being around other people on the autistic scale. There are online sites for him to meet other people if this isn’t possible in real life.

Have you thought about home schooling, distance learning or a special autistic school? Contact the autistic society; http://www.autism.org.uk/ for guidance if you are in the UK. If you are in America contact the nearest equivalent. He will be much less angry if people understood him. This includes you and any other family members. My family treated me brother very badly and this made him very angry. I assume you read my post above yours regarding my brother murdering my mum. This is the worst case scenario. I know many other autistic people who are happy. They are happy because people treat them well, with understanding and compassion. You have to make sure he is happy by helping him with his problems.

TBC

Medication to manage his mood swings is an option but not a very good one. You can make him calm but this won’t deal with the underlying problems he has. As soon as you take him off the meds he will be just as bad, if not worse than before. You can expect to keep him drugged of his entire life. He could do with a psychologist/counselor to help him deal with these issues. This will only work if this person becomes his friend. AS is not a mental illness but anyone can develop a mental illness when the are treated like crap by everyone around them and feel they have nothing in common with anyone.

I also think you should attend a support group as it is very hard to be a full time carer of someone who appears to resent you for being there.

Hope I helped. My e-mail is smergyl@yahoo.co.uk if you need anymore help or just someone to talk to.

P.s. Sorry about the lack of paragraphs this site doesn’t seem to like them.