Our Sons Are Not Future Killers

From The New York Times' Motherlode blog, a post by Emily Willingham is science editor at the Thinking Person’s Guide to Autism, manages the Double X Science blog, and blogs at Forbes.
 
The Asperger’s stereotype before the shootings in Newtown, Conn., was relatively harmless if inaccurate – that of a quirky, brilliant male unable to read subtle social cues or navigate the world of non-autistic people. Think Sheldon on “The Big Bang Theory” or Abed on “Community.”
The reality, like any reality disconnected from network television, is quite different. People with Asperger’s have a highly variable set of skills and capacities, most of them unrelated to brilliance or prepossessing eccentricities. Average intelligence, very real struggles with social navigation, and joblessness are far more prevalent among those with Asperger’s  than cute personality quirks like wearing unmatched socks or exhibiting an endless fascination with trains.

Speculation Over the Shooter's Disorder

Adam Lanza as a middle school
student.

I hesitate to post this, because it is still hearsay that Adam Lanza had any form of autism. There have been reports of mental illness and it just seems to early to speculate. There have been so many errors in the media's coverage of this tragic story. So perhaps that's why I am so reluctant to even address this issue. Please share your thoughts on this.

 

Among the details to emerge in the aftermath of the Connecticut elementary school massacre was the possibility that the gunman had some form of autism.

Adam Lanza, 20, had a personality disorder or autism, his brother reportedly told police. Former classmates described him as socially awkward, friendless and painfully shy.

While those are all traits of autism, a propensity for premeditated violence is not. Several experts said that at most, autism would have played a tangential role in the mass shooting -- if Lanza had it at all.