The rush to blame autism after tragedies at schools

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He bragged on youtube that he would become a "professional school shooter".

He wasn't going to be nobody anymore.

Autism Speaks extends its deepest condolences to the community of Parkland, Florida, after last week’s deadly shooting rampage. As investigators search for motives, media reports indicated that the gunman had been diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. But an autism diagnosis does not explain this horrific act of violence. We know that speculation and misinformation about autism and other neurodevelopmental disabilities have hurtful and lasting consequences.

Many people with autism also have secondary health issues and, in some, that secondary condition can be a mental health condition. However, research shows that people on the autism spectrum do not have higher rates of criminal behavior than the general public. In fact, teens and adults with autism are more likely than average to be the victims of crime. Autism affects each person differently, and misconceptions can increase prejudice toward the vast majority who are peaceful and productive members of society. Together, we can increase understanding and acceptance of each person’s unique story – the challenges, interests, abilities and aspirations. This is a time to mourn with the Parkland community and to remember that words matter when discussing this heartbreaking loss of life and shattered sense of security.

I would say you're right. They will think the "autism angle" is garbage. I don't believe it will be bought up, though.

Autistic people, by nature, just don't go around killing people. Autism is the least of the causes of this tragedy. It just shouldn't be emphasized.

I would say you're right. They will think the "autism angle" is garbage. I don't believe it will be bought up, though.

Autistic people, by nature, just don't go around killing people. Autism is the least of the causes of this tragedy. It just shouldn't be emphasized.

I tend to think that most of what the media does with regard to criminal reporting is a violation of due process. Far too much of it seems to resemble yet another reality TV show; sensationalist and seeking ratings to get money from advertising. In less clear cut cases just the accusation will stay with the person indefinitely even if they are eventually shown found to be not guilty by the courts. Guilty until proven innocent, but being found innocent is rarely news worthy (not that I expect the cruz guy to be found innocent).

So what needs to happen to make AS children safer from bullying at school? What do you think might work?

NORWALK — Owen Lynch went to school early Tuesday, thinking it would be a typical day at Norwalk High.
The 17-year-old junior mostly kept to himself, something he’s learned to embrace as he navigates life with autism and a lack of social skills.

But by third period, the school was under a shelter alert, as the administration had received a report from a student who thought he heard a gun sling back in the boys bathroom earlier in the morning.

Since Lynch was at the bathroom around that time, he was pulled out of class during third period and questioned by Norwalk police and a school security officer, he said.
They took his phone and searched him, and later searched his locker, too. They found nothing, so they sent him back to class.

Lynch thinks that’s when the rumors started — and when an old photo of him began circulating on social media with captions that read, “@schoolshooter” and “He’s the one who brought the gun.”

“I’ve never been violent, I’ve never been hostile. I just keep to myself and play my video games,” Lynch said. “That’s all I do.”

Lynch was then pulled out of class again so his mother could pick him up early, he said. The school had an early dismissal at 1:30 p.m. that day, after police confirmed no threat had been made and no weapon or firearm was discovered during the several hours students were sheltered in place.

Still, Lynch continued to be labeled a school shooter.

When he got home, he received various messages — from people whom he hadn’t spoken to since the summer — asking if he brought a gun to school. Even people from other towns were posting about him, his online gamer friends told him. One of them sent him a screenshot of one of the circulating photos, which was his first time seeing it.
His mom eventually took his phone and laptop away from him, so he wouldn’t be bombarded with any more messages.

“One of the first things he said during this was, ‘I could go weeks with nobody talking to me at school. But the minute something happens, they all know all who I am,’” his mother, Heather Florian said.

This is not the first time Lynch has been bullied or singled out by students in the district, Florian said. Nor is it the first time the district has offered him the option of being moved to a different school because of it.
When Florian notified the school on Wednesday, a guidance counselor and a school resource officer visited their home. They offered Lynch the option of going to Norwalk Pathways Academy, a recuperative high school for students who are behind in their studies or might otherwise be struggling in a traditional learning environment.
But Lynch refuses to take this option.
“The school district needs to change,” he said. “The people in the schools need to learn that singling someone out just because they’re a little bit different, because they don’t want to talk to people, because they don’t know how to communicate properly doesn’t mean that I’m any different from you.
“Just because I’m a little different doesn’t mean I’m going to come into school one day with a gun,” he added.
Lynch was diagnosed with autism when he was 10. From an early age, he lacked certain social skills, which made it difficult for him to hold a conversation or read social cues and facial expressions. He also tends to fixate on particular subjects.
His peers started taking notice in second grade, which is when the bullying began, he said.
People used to follow him home and throw rocks at him when he was in elementary school. Then in seventh grade, he was expelled when a few students asked him if he could use a pentagram to blow up things, like a school, and he said yes. This was after he had just watched a Halloween movie about witchcraft and pentagrams and talked about the movie on several occasions.
Those years of bullying led to his diagnosis of PTSD in seventh grade and his move out of the district to the Boys and Girls Village in Milford, where he attended classes until the first half of freshman year.
He worked hard on his social skills to return to Norwalk High School, his mother said, and came back the second half of his freshman year. She wanted to keep him out of the district longer, afraid he would get bullied again.

And he did.

“A few months ago, some kids decided they were going to cause some problems and call him a drug dealer,” Florian said. “Norwalk has a real problem with following through with this bullying ... And this is a consistent thing where he doesn’t feel safe or protected at school, where there’s never consequences for kids who are bullying and he always feels like he’s the one being punished.”

District spokeswoman Brenda Wilcox-Williams said school administrators and the school resource officer at Norwalk High are investigating the most recent wave of bullying directed at Lynch following Tuesday’s incident. She declined further comment, citing the ongoing investigation.

Under Connecticut’s bullying law, school officials are required to take action if there are repeated use of a written, oral or electronic communication and/or a physical gesture or act directed at a student that impacts the school environment or a student’s desire to attend school. In 2011, the law expanded to include cyberbullying.

The Cyberbullying Research Center found that about half of young people have experienced some form of cyberbullying, and 10 to 20 percent experience regularly.
Research suggests children with autism are especially vulnerable to bullying, nearly five times more often than their typically developing peers.

Per advice from an attorney, Florian plans on filing an official bullying complaint with the district and scheduling a Planning and Placement Team meeting to discuss an out-district placement for her son.

For now, she wants to open up the dialogue about bullying within the community.

She started this process by posting a screenshot of one of circulating photos into a closed Facebook group for Norwalk parents on Tuesday. Since then, she’s gotten sympathetic comments from more than a dozen parents. Some have said they’ve talked to their children about the incident and how it’s not right.

As for Lynch, he simply wants the bullying to stop so he can return to school and get back on track with his life’s aspirations.
He hopes to become a bio-technician someday and is already looking at prospective colleges. Just the other day, he was excited to find mail from a biotechnology and engineering school in Hawaii.
“I just want to study biotechnology and genetic engineering because it’s one of the most interesting things there are,” Lynch said. “With one discovery, we can open up a whole new cycle of life. I actually believe it’s one of the things that could save us.”

Along with the mailer from the Hawaii school, Lynch also received a card of sympathy from a family who had heard about his most recent bullying situation.
On the front it said, “You are not alone.”
Inside it read: “Even though we don’t know you personally, we just wanted to reach out to let you know that we care about you & are so sorry what happened on Tues. Be strong & know that people care.”

Although Lynch has learned how to block out the bullying after years of being a target, he said the pain still lingers from each incident.

But he appreciates those who’ve stood up for him this time around.

“All I just need is for people to not just assume that people are automatically going to harm them because they don’t talk,” Lynch said. “It just, I need it to stop. It hurts. After a while, yes, I can block it out. But it still hurts.”

^
Looks like a proposal for a high school curriculum course on openness and compassion about mental and developmental disorders might be in order. Can you agree?

Families and individuals living with autism are weary of being dragged into the fearmongering following the tragic events of at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla.

News reports keep mentioning Nikolas Cruz's autism. It remains unclear whether Cruz was officially diagnosed and receiving services through his school district. Nonetheless, the public is left to draw its own conclusions about what role autism played in his choice to kill so many people. As the public attempts to connect dots of information, families and individuals living with autism are weary of being dragged into the fearmongering following the tragic events of at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla.

Why does Cruz's unconfirmed autism diagnosed keep getting mentioned and why are families and individuals quick to distance themselves? First, people are looking for something to blame. Second, fear of being tainted by mental illness and the violence perpetrated by Cruz is strong among families and individuals living with autism. It's understandable that people don't want to be caught up in the turmoil surrounding the murders of so many.

It's not that great of a leap to believe that if enough people get it in their heads that autistic equals violence that all autistic people will suffer from the association. It doesn't take long cruising through comment sections on various news articles to find commenters willing to throw autistic people on the trash heap of life. The same attitude extends to people dealing with mental illness.

For many, this tragedy is an opportunity to restage familiar ideological battles over gun control. Reactionary responses along entrenched ideological lines gloss over the real suffering caused by ineffective systems of identification, intervention, family and individual support when it comes to autism and mental health. People are left doing the best they can while systemic failures go unaddressed and political opponents score points off each other over the suffering of human beings.

After a boy's gun threat caused Orono schools to go on lockdown last week, the local community is choosing to react with compassion, not condemnation.

Almost $20,000 has been raised through a GoFundMe campaign for the family of the boy responsible for a social media post threatening gun violence at an Orono school, just days after a mass school shooting claimed 17 lives in Florida.

The fundraiser was started by Claire Berrett on behalf of the Johnson family, who reveals that the boy in question, Jake, is on the autism spectrum, and that the threat was made "in frustration with a group discussion regarding school safety, without the benefit of impulse control."

"There was no intention, nor the means, to carry out the threat," she writes.

Johnson's name has not been formally released by authorities as he's a juvenile, but Berrett, an Orono schools parent herself, says in her post she has the family's permission to share their information.

She says he is "deeply broken" and "despondent" while he's being held at the Hennepin County Juvenile Detention Center, where his "special needs condition prevents him from coping with his detention."