Aspergers the cause of a school stabbing? I don't think so...

[Dreamstalker]

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/cit...grader_st.html

TV news reports on this are very confused. One station said that the teen who carried out the stabbing had Aspergers Syndrome.

Another report said nothing about Aspergers, only that the teen was known for violent behavior/thoughts and was undergoing psychiatric treatment (it was said somewhere that he asked a science teacher if he had any acid so he could make a bomb ).

As far as I know AS itself cannot be controlled or "cured" with medication (contrary to what the first news report stated).

Aspergers kids are very shy and tend to go out of their way to avoid confrontation especially when younger. Now I hear that the kid's lawyer is attempting to use an Aspergers "diagnosis" defense to get the case dismissed.

This pisses me off. I have Aspergers, and everything I've read about it is counter to what this kid did. Yes, there are clearly problems that he was in treatment for, but it seems to me that AS has nothing to do with it.

It's going to be very interesting to see what this does for PR/future diagnoses regarding the syndrome.

[Thegiraffe]

First of all, it's important to note that I have a degree in psychology (though I'm not at all discounting personal experience....I absolutely believe in the power of that).

Children with AS are generally shy and withdrawn....disconnected if you will. However, they also tend to be aware that they're "different", but they don't have the cognitive assessment capabilities to identify and work through the differences. Quite often, it can result in depression.

Second, there is a comorbidity factor to take into account. AS has a high co-occurrence (comorbidity) with other childhood disorders, ADHD being one of them. One of the hallmarks of ADHD is impulsivity. Some models and hypotheses suggest that people with ADHD have less active prefrontal cortexes, which is where impulse control takes place. These people tend to be more apt to "leap before they look". This could have also been a potential factor. It's also likely that the ADHD wasn't diagnosed, because he could have been more attention deficit than hyperactive, and the lack of attention could have been passed off as the disconnected nature of AS.

I'm simply speculating here, and playing a little of devil's advocate, but it's important to see both sides because I'm sure there will be a lot of people on the other side.

[rahmota]

TG sorry to go off tangent here and I dont mean to degrade or demean your degree and the time you took getting it but I sfind a lot of that psychobabble BS to be trite crap as it is applied in the schools and society today.

Dreamstalker I am also not meaning to imply or dismiss you issues with Aspergers or others mental issues. I just think too many people use the mental issues card as a cop out for their own lack of behavioral self control. People have the ability to choose to do right or wrong, good or evil, behave or misbehave.

A lot of pressure is put on kids (and adults) to CONFORM to the socially acceptable ideal of what "normal" is. If the person isnt "normal" (whatever that is) then they must be sick and we have to treat them for their abnormallity. I have had people try and tell me I'm ADHD, Manic Depressive and all sorts of other BS. I am fighting with the schools right now over my youngest and am about ready to yank him the hell back out of there and homeschool him again. (The only reason he is even back in is my wife convinced me we should give them another try since they promised to play by our rules). But society sees non-conformity as an illness and must treat it with drugs or therapy or otherwise force a person to conform to what is normal. A lot of the "mental" or "special" needs people are driven to that point by the BS of being "special" in a very vicious circle. Oh you dont conform so you must be special oh you're special so you dont conform etc..... Once a person has that dead rat hung around their neck its harder than ever to get rid of it.

I have had to fight with the school to stop them from trying to shove my youngest into "special needs" classes as he is a nonconformist like me. He is also 7 years old with a highly developed and active imagination, an above average intelligence but lacks the social conformity that the school has tried to heavy handedly enforce upon him. They do not interest or motivate him and so he goes off and does his own thing and he unfortuantely inherited my temperment as well so to try and force him back results in him throwing his books or banging his head as we have taught him its not good to hit others at a time like that. His doctors have not found anythign physically wrong with him and his IQ tests out as above average. He just does not get motivated at school and it is their fault not his but they wish to place the blame on him as he may have "special needs" Yeah a teacher that isnt too GD lazy and worthless that she cant get the attention of her students. Maybe he should be in advanced classes but not special needs. And I've already made it perfectly clear toi the school that the first person from the school or anywhere who mentions suggests or otherwise even considers effing up my son's life with drugs is going to need them for themselves, as in lots of painkillers when I get done kicking their arses. And considering how the last time I got into an argument with them I accidentally ripped the doorknob off the office door I think they understand where my son gets his temper. yes I turned into a mondo sucky customer but in defense of my son and to protect him from the depredations of psychobabble spewing scumbag psychologists and trashy drug pushing ilk like that I'll do whatever it takes to protect him. Hells I refuse to even refer tothe psychologist at the school with her title as Doctor she is always MRs. as a Doctor is someone who deals with medical issues not psychological.

Doping kids up just so they'll conform to what society and people think normal should be is a downright blasphemy against the human body and freewill of a person. doping the kids with that shit that causes tumors, heart attacks in 12 year olds (respirdal especially as my cousin found out when her 10 year old had a freaking heart attack and wound up almost dying from resperdal ) and generally hurts them more than it does them any good as it totally disturbs the bodies natural rythms when all the kid needed was a helping hand or someone to give a rats arse and interest them in the world. I have no trouble with my son at all getting him to read or recognize shapes and complex ideas or even to behave himself (within what is reasonable and expected for a 7 year old) as a decent person should.

Sorry for going off on a rant like this but I have no use for psychobabble BS. If a person has a mental illness it is because their brains do not actually physically work within nominal perameters and they cannot recognize the world around the, Be it they burned their neurons out through drugs , accidents, or birth defects. I can understand recognize and accept that. I can even understand medicating people with those physical problems. But unfortunately the "mental illness" crud is used as a cop out for people who are too uncaring or lazy to actually try and figure out what the problem is with the person or their life or the situation they are in. It is used as a cop out to try and push drugs on people whose only "crime" or "illness" is that they do not CONFORM to the definition of "normal" assigned to them by society. Normal is a highly relative thing.

Again I dont mean to attack or personally insult either of you this is just a problem I see with society right now and how everybody has somekind of "mental illness" thing going on. Hell if I went to the right psychodoctors I could probably be diagnosed with several different psychosies, illnesses and syndromes myself. Anyone could be its called dealing with life. You either pull your shite together and get on with it or you let it overwhelm you and dont. But either way the world keeps moving with or without you. Your choice.

[Dreamstalker]

I know that AS can be diagnosed as other things and vice versa (for a period of a few years I was on some fairly heavy psychotropic meds some of which should never be prescribed at the age I was at the time--thanks to gross misdiagnoses of schizophrenia, antiisocial, etc--which didn't do squat).

I was 15 when my mom finally put her foot down and took me off the drugs (that was prompted by plummeting grades due to the meds spacing me out so much there was no possible way I could concentrate in class--falling asleep in scene shop and almost having a messy accident involving a radial arm saw was also a huge factor). After that I was fine...at that time AS was largely unknown and I have a feeling the doctors were prescribing based on misinterpretation of the symptoms they saw.

I guess the part that I'm confused about is why latch onto the AS diagnosis so quickly in this instance?

Yup, I was bullied, picked on, etc...I took out my frustrations using God Mode in Dark Forces. See, violent video games aren't all bad (then again, I was a scarily smart kid and knew what was OK and what was Bad)...

[Dreamstalker]

TG sorry to go off tangent here and I dont mean to degrade or demean your degree and the time you took getting it but I sfind a lot of that psychobabble BS to be trite crap as it is applied in the schools and society today.

Dreamstalker I am also not meaning to imply or dismiss you issues with Aspergers or others mental issues. I just think too many people use the mental issues card as a cop out for their own lack of behavioral self control. People have the ability to choose to do right or wrong, good or evil, behave or misbehave.

I do tend to agree, that too often mental disorders are used as a sort of crutch (as in this instance, where I hear the kid's lawyer is trying to have the case dismissed because of AS which may or may not actually be a factor). I swear, it seems that every time a new disorder/condition is discovered the incidence rate soars for awhile and it becomes the diagnosis of the month (to borrow a phrase from a friend) until something else comes along.

I'm now questioning my own diagnosis of AS...when I was born, I had a number of fairly serious brain bleeds. I've noticed that I have improved in ways that point to the brain working around damaged areas...I can't really explain it, but it seems that way (also, there is no family history of any related disorders and AS is very rare in females).

I shouldn't have turned out as well as I did...I believe a reason for that is because I know right and wrong and have the capacity to figure out cause and effect (that's because my parents actually parented and taught me these things). Pretty much everyone has the ability to distinguish right from wrong, but children need someone else to help them figure that out until they have the full capacity to do it themselves.

[rahmota]

I forgot to explain how I feel about the insanity defense clearly. For a situation where the lawyer tries to bring some kind of "mental illness" up as the defense I'm sorry but unless the doctor (a real medical doctor that is) shows that there is some real brain damage and not some psychobabble crud then that person is guilty as hell and just trying an insanity cop out to try and get out of their crimes.

And before you go off on me about depression I do not see it as an illness but a state of mind. It is your mind to control and determine your own fate. You choose to be depressed or you choose to not be. Believe me I've stared into the abyss enough times to almost fall for that life is out of my hands crud but I choose to think and feel the way I do because I choose to do so. I willingly look into the abyss and then walk away. Anyone and everyone can do so if they have the will to decide to do so. The courage to fight and face another day.

Only real physical brain damage counts otherwise if you are cognizant enough to pick up the gun or knife or whatever and kill someone with it then you are cognizant enough to go to prison or the chair (Or even better bring back the rope necktie) to be punished.

As for this kid in this instance. Since it is doubtful we'll ever hear what really happened to cause him to kill the other kid its a tragic and unfortunate failure of his parents, his friends and himself to control and influence his life into proper channels. That he chose to take a life and ruin his is sad no matter what the real cause. Because he will have to live with the memories of that moment for the rest of his life.

[protege]

Well put. Nowadays, people will claim *anything* rather than take the responsibility for something.

For example, when gang violence was at its peak here in the early 1990s, some local residents were blaming video games and the gun industry as causing their kids to kill each other. Uh, last time I checked, it was up to the *parents* to raise their kids...*Not* the gun industry.

I know, it's not quite the same. What I'm trying to say, is that too many excuses are being made to justify some really horrible things.

I do know what depression does to people. I've had to deal with it my entire life. However, I do *not* let it control me, nor do I make excuses for it. It's also not something you can snap out of.

[rahmota]

Protege: Yeah thats true. Responsibility is something too many people think is like the flu, something they dont wanna catch but if they do they hope they get over it quickly.

As for depression I guess I did come off a bit strong. For me fighting against that sort of thing is second nature. I come from a long line of strong willed people so the Abyss has no real hold over me. At least not a lasting one. For some people it can be a more difficult struggle, but it is still one a person can win without resorting to drugs or "professional" help for the most part. A refusal to give up or give in and the support of friends, loved ones and sometimes people you'll never meet in the flesh but only know as a screen name like here can all help win the battle.

The other problem I have with all this "mental issues" stuff is the government is spending billions for the say no to drugs and other anti drugs programs. Yet we turn the tv on or look in a magazine and what sort of adsd do we see? If you're feeling sad, feeling out of sorts or having a bad day take a pill and feel so much better just see your doctor. What kind of mixed message is that. Dont do illegal drugs that give you a buzz and make you feel good until lthey wear off take these legal prescribed drugs that give you a buzz and make you feel better til they wear off.

Dreamstalker: It sounds like you had a typical childhood for someone who didn't fit into the pegs of school society. I was an uber geek in school too. Bullied, insulted, laughed at, and all that, but like you said and saw a set of parents who care and understand that they are the ones that have to show right and wrong are what makes the difference between someone willing to go into school with a shotgun one day or otherwise go bad and someone who turns out reasonably capable and responsible.

I know what you mean about the disease of the month club. I blame the drug companies for a lot of that. Sometimes I think they come up with a pill and then find a disease to apply it towards.

[Dreamstalker]

I'm not exactly sure what my stand on mental illness is; all I have really is my personal experience of horrible misdiagnoses and my "formative years" being pretty much shot to hell because of that (once I got taken off of any and all psychotropic medications, I daresay I turned out fine).

Dreamstalker: It sounds like you had a typical childhood for someone who didn't fit into the pegs of school society. I was an uber geek in school too. Bullied, insulted, laughed at, and all that, but like you said and saw a set of parents who care and understand that they are the ones that have to show right and wrong are what makes the difference between someone willing to go into school with a shotgun one day or otherwise go bad and someone who turns out reasonably capable and responsible.

I'm not denying that some days I entertained thoughts of the bullies meeting messy ends, but I knew they were just that--fantasies. Yeah, I decked a few in grade school, but my mom showed me how to throw a proper punch

I know what you mean about the disease of the month club. I blame the drug companies for a lot of that. Sometimes I think they come up with a pill and then find a disease to apply it towards.

Oh, of course. IIRC, doctors get paid by the companies to hawk their creations. The various advertising "ask your doctor about X" doesn't really help either as that will serve to convince some people that they do have whatever the pill claims to help.

[Rubystars]

...

I had trouble socially when I was in school so they tried to diagnose me with all kinds of things, they tried to say I had ADD (I wasn't hyper), and one time they tried to say I had very mild autism (I think that's the same as AS) because I did really well in school and was very articulate and had a much higher reading level than others, but didn't have any real friends. I think they might have trotted out a couple of other things but I can't remember them all now.

It was funny as an adult to go back and read the reports they had sent my mom. My mom was laughing about them too. For example I would chew on my pencil to crack my jaw sometimes and they called this "Bizarre behavior." The same thing for twirling my long hair through my fingers a little due to being bored, they thought that was 'bizarre'. Bullshit! I was just doing kid stuff, not being bizarre or strange at all.

I also had an imaginary friend (a mouse) that I knew was imaginary in elementary school that I joked around with teachers about. They thought that I thought it was real and they thought I was mental. For someone who had a lack of real friends it was healthy and normal for me to make one up.

Basically, the school psychologists think if you're shy or have a good imagination or both you must be mentally ill! They never tried to put me on any medicines, thank goodness. I think what saved me from that fate was that even though I wasn't socially doing well that I wasn't hyper and I made good grades.

There are some kids though that I think need the medicines, not nearly as many as they try to push them off on, but some. I babysat this one girl with ADHD while her parents would go to AMWAY meetings. If she was properly medicated while I watched her during the evenings, she'd sit and watch tv or play board games with me or something else that was fairly easy and her difficulties were just normal kid stuff. If I had to watch her all day and her medicine wore off, watch out! She acted like a maniac, tried to lock me ot of the house, tried to cut her own foot with scissors, would hang off of doors, run around like a maniac, etc. That girl needed the medicine, so I'm not going to blanketly condemn using them, but I will agree that the conditions the medicines are used for are massively over-diagnosed.

[Lace Neil Singer]

I had a lot of trouble at school; I was obviously different and didn't fit in. Now of course, it's obvious that was due to Aspergers. However, I never thought of committing murder; I turned my problems inwards, with self harm. It really pisses me off when people claim to have mental illness they don't have, either to get them off the hook or to grab sympathy. They should be grateful they don't have one.

[SongsOfDragons]

I had all those bullying, imaginative, advanced reading things at school, and went to a counsellor for them in Year Three...but I don't think any odd diagnoses came up.

That and my Year 1 and 2 teacher was a BITCH. BITCHBITCHBITCHBITCHY C-WORD. HATE her. She was one of those who just should not have been a teacher; SHE picked on ME, refused to let me read books above the level of the class until everyone else was also ready, did nothing but bitch about me to my parents at Parent's Evening and drag me to the headmistress in front of everyone for no freakin' reason. I was 5-6 at the time; hello you whorebag, you are an adult, you DO NOT do this to a defenceless child!!!

I hope she's dead.

[Dreamstalker]

Songs, that teacher of yours sounds like one of mine in high school, when I got thrown into a "special ed" English class (why? in 5th grade I was reading at a college level). Damn I hated the woman. The class spent an entire semester on some awful touchy-feely-life-lesson young adult sports novel (gag). I finished that horrid little book in a day, and my regular reading material in the class was things like Heinlein, Bradbury, Lovecraft et al. I would often get singled out and talked down to ("come on now, let's read what the rest of the class is reading")...did it ever occur to her that just maybe I had finished the assigned book? (had she asked, I would have been able to answer pretty much any question about the thing)

It's been a few months and I haven't heard anything else about this trial one way or the other...who knows what happened now.

[Boozy]

That and my Year 1 and 2 teacher was a BITCH. BITCHBITCHBITCHBITCHY C-WORD. HATE her.
I hope she's dead.

You were 6 years old when you last dealt with this woman, and you're still this angry? That's probably not good for you. Although I do understand that dealing with people like this in your formative years can really stick with you.

Food for thought: I was advanced for my age, too (I skipped a few grades) and I also dealt with ignorant teachers who didn't understand. But keep in mind that we're lucky we didn't need extra help just to keep up and stay in school like so many other kids. In retrospect, I understand that my teachers were doing the best they knew how. Sometimes teachers are so focused on helping the ones who are really in need that they screw up with the others. But if you're that smart, my guess is you guys did just fine. I suspect there were others you went to school with who weren't so fortunate.

[Dreamstalker]

Yeah...my HS special ed program was sort of a dumping ground for all the seriously disturbed (almost violent) kids that none of the better-prepared schools in the area wanted to deal with. As screwed-up as they thought I was, there was worse...and the teachers truly didn't know how to deal with them.

(in some ways I sympathized with the teachers as very few of them were actually trained to deal with a few of those kids)