Kids who have both ASD and psychopathy

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Psychopathy is a personality disorder characterized by enduring antisocial behavior, fearless dominance, disinhibition, and cold-heartedness. Often ASD and psychopathy have been compared and contrasted with each other, but what of those with ASD who also have psychopathy, or at least elevated psychopathic traits? This article looks at some kids who have these traits, comparing them to kids who don't have them or very little:

https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... double_hit

This article shows that psychopathy is separate from ASD, but a kid may have both. Most kids with elevated psychopathic traits weren't psychopathic, but there were a few ASD kids with psychopathy. These kids tended to have violent histories or fixation on violence and could still engage in "chilling", "nasty" behavior and were more impaired in detecting distress in other people than the kids with little to no psychopathic traits (which is consistent with psychopathy, not ASD). This article suggests that doctors should not just assume that ASD explains a kid's severe antisocial behavior.

I had severe antisocial behavior as a kid, and I do find that I have some of this same coldness. As a kid, I was noted to lack remorse and empathy and could engage in serious violence that would seem to come out of the blue. It took some pretty heavy intervention to get me to stop. As I recover from depression and become more productive, I still find that I don't care about a lot of things, like I rarely care about other people except in relation to what they can do for me, or to me. My parents have noticed irresponsibility, callousness, and a tendency to be glib at times. For my SSDI, my parents recently wrote that there is a "lack of empathy/love/caring" in me. I agree, and attempts to achieve this have only resulted in a feeling of distress for me, so I return to the dark and keep the void within me open, which I prefer.

In fact, before engaging in severe antisocial behavior as a kid, I would sometimes seem to have been doing better than normal. I remember those times, where I feel an urge to present myself as more friendly and prosocial as I seal away my plans for what I'm about to do, or what I've done. When I "seal" these ideas in my consciousness, the ideas do not come to mind at all when I'm talking to other people. I know there is something there that is sealed, and that I can unseal it anytime I wish, but it doesn't come automatically. This I think makes it to where things like anxiety don't show.

I've also found that I can take on leadership positions pretty well, like at my last 2 jobs. I can see what needs to be done and issue instructions. I have no problems instructing others, and in fact enjoy it. I appear to have quite a force of personality; I don't seem to have the "timidness" in social or other situations most autistic people seem to have. When I was a kid, I was not shy, though I often engaged in activities alone anyway. I would get angry if bothered.

Nevertheless, I think I am still autistic.

Same in some ways but I have never been pure nasty to anyone. I'm not a psychopath but I can be a good leader too

One of the criteria for sociopathic personality disorder and anti-social personality disorder is that you have to be 18. So there is no such thing as a kid who's a psychopath. The article says psychopathic tendencies. This is important because a lot of the narcissism of the disorder is pretty common in teenagers. Their brains aren't developed yet. In toddlers, these behaviors are down right normal.

There is a diagnosis for kids who enjoy hurting others. Its oppositional defiant disorder.

You beat me to it.

Keep in mind that this article does not treat psychopathy and antisocial personality disorder as synonymous. Antisocial traits are important for the separate concept of psychopathy, but unlike in antisocial personality disorder interpersonal-affective factors are also important. Antisocial personality disorder emphasizes behavior in its diagnosis.

Here, they look at a specifier of conduct disorder called by them callous and unemotional traits (CU) but by the DSM-5 "with limited prosocial emotions", which are seen as a likely precursor to psychopathy in particular. These involve lack of empathy, lack of remorse, shallow affect, and lack of concern over performance.

I may have simplified my description a bit, but my basic point remains: You can have both autistic and psychopathic traits. They are not mutually exclusive.

Yes you have.

As an adult, it is theoretically possible, but we were not arguing against that, its that you said that there were kid psychopaths. Kids can be very mean and stupid and have zero empathy - that is the nature of being an undeveloped human being, at least you reach the age of 18, which the diagnosis criteria for ASPD mentions. Before the age of 18, then you have conduct disorder which is what that diagnosis is all about, not one of the 4 antisocial ones.

"Psychopaths" are antisocial through their behaviour, they are parasites, manipulative, deceiving, predator like, narcissistic as*holes with a grandiose self image. Also, there is no psychopath diagnosis or sociopath diagnosis, it is all included in the Antisocial PD (or included in Narcissistic PD, Borderline PD or Histrionic PD - the other 3 on the antisocial spectrum).

Sociopathy and Psychopathy are now just words and they have traditionally been used to distinguish between socially developed and a "born with" predisposition for ASPD.

If you ever run into a person who have one of these 4 diagnosis in real life, you'll know the difference. Working for a government agency with lots of prestige and high titles flying around, i run into these f*****s all the time and it has served me well learning about them so i am able to spot them quickly.

I still believe I had antisocial traits as a kid. I lacked remorse and empathy, I tried to get my cat to fight with a neighbor's dog but didn't realize the real danger of it and how harmful it can be. But I grew out of these things except for the empathy and lack of remorse part. I still can't understand why people would do bad things and feel bad for it or feel bad for their mistakes they have made. Just apologize and do amends and move on, why feel guilt about it. That feeling sucks.

Also in my teens I had antisocial thoughts because of my anxiety but I never acted on them. Even my therapist mentioned ASPD to me but didn't diagnose me with it because I didn't fit the criteria or was even close to having it. He only mentioned it when I expressed my fantasies I wanted to do to my brothers so their friends would never want to come back and my brothers wouldn't be able to have parties there again and I would be free from the anxiety. He told me that would be antisocial personality disorder. Plus I didn't have ODD as a kid nor did I meet the criteria for conduct disorder and to have ASPD, there has to be a sign of conduct under 15 years of age. I wonder what happens if someone all of a sudden started to show ASPD but didn't have any history of ODD or conduct disorder? Also to also have this condition, the symptoms cannot be explained by another mental illness.

It's not unheard of in people with diseases that can cause brain damage, it was even featured in a House MD episode about a woman with Syphilis.

This article is behind a paywall, but you get the idea from reading the abstract:
http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198565741.001.0001/acprof-9780198565741-chapter-23

Thanks for the link to that article - that's really interesting. I think the research shows that callous unemotional traits (CU) (which we can see in children and can be predictive of later psychopathy in adulthood) can be present in an individual with ASD. But the data shows that it is not part of the ASD but another issue the individual has on top of ASD.

I am quite wary of this kind of data though because people with autsim can look and act as if they have CU but what you're actually seeing is a lack of understanding, not a lack of caring and when they understand that they've hurt people they do feel strong guilt. That's not to say that you can't have both at the same time but that CU can be read 'into' situation with people who have ASD when it's not there so I think it's important to be careful.

What I would question, in this general area of discussion, is whether an individual with ASD could have fullblown psychopathy as described by the Hare checklist. A significant part of that diagnosis requires an extensive ability to manipulate people. This requires having a really strong theory of mind which is very weak in people with ASD. So while I think people can have CU and/or psychopathyic traits at the same time as having ASD I don't think it's possible to have diagnosible psychopathy with ASD. I think this is because parts of psychopathy require brain function which is limited, sometimes severely, in people with ASD. So if you have someone with clear properly diagnosed psychopathy they that kind of rules out having ASD and visa versa.

I guess my view is that people on the spectrum can have some psychopathic traits but they can't have full psychopathy. Also I think because of the deficits in theory of mind in people with ASD testing for CU in children or pschopathic traits in adults have to be very careful and take into account how a lack of understanding can look callous but not be meant that way at all.

Interesting thread - thanks!

Kenobi, Only time i think it's possible to have some sort of antisocial traits is when you are exposed to a cold hearted environment that makes you shut of your compassion and caring to other people - and you do not have to be autistic to do that, even normal people do it, and end up in crime or "less reputable" situations.

I know Tony Atwood shares this view (i commented on a seminar he had and he wrote this back).

Personality disorders in general are only diagnosed at 18 years of age and older due to the often erratic nature of development. It often isn't clear whether a certain behavior is due to a disorder or just a phase in development. Children who grow up to be diagnosed as psychopaths are often diagnosed with "conduct disorder", which is basically psychopathy for kids. Children can have personality disorders/be psychopaths; it just can't be confirmed until they reach adulthood.

My understanding of this is that psychopathy is related to a brain abnormality (Link to article about brain differences in psychopathy)

And it has a strongly genetic component - related to the MAOA-L gene.

There has recently been a really interesting case of a neuroscientist who studied psychopathy and brain structure. He was later found to have a psychopathic brain structure and when they geneticaly tested him he also has the MAOA-L gene too. However he calls himself a pro-social psychopath becuase he is able to keep his behaviour roughly within socially acceptable limits. He believes that because he was loved and protected as a child the brain structure and genetic load he carried didn't evolve into full-on psychopathy.
Here's a link to an article on this:
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-neuroscientist-who-discovered-he-was-a-psychopath-180947814/?no-ist


So I think psychopathy is something which you are born with a genetic and brain structural pre-disposition for but that a really good childhood can protect you from the worst effects of this. Clearly this is not always possible, for instance Ted Bundy was said to have had a very loving giving childhood but it wasn't enough to stop his psychopathy. Also there are people who suffer enormous childhood abuse but never develop paychopathic traits at all.

"pro-social psychopath" sounds much like what is normally described as a "socialised psychopath", i.e. one that have been around society long enough and learned that if he want to function in society, he better behave himself (usually with punishment or career degradation).

These people can still bite though...