When was adam lanza diagnosed with aspergers

After much debate, the term Asperger's is being dropped from the diagnostic manual used by the nation's psychiatrists. In changes approved earlier this month, Asperger's will be incorporated under the umbrella term "autism spectrum disorder" for all the ranges of autism.

Facebook Twitter Email. Experts: No link between Asperger's, violence. Who was Conn. Investigators tried to figure out what led a bright but painfully awkward year-old to slaughter 26 children and adults at a Connecticut elementary school.

Asperger's was a central component of 60 Minutes 's report on Lanza Sunday night, including a statement from an advocacy group that insisted those with Asperger's are more likely to be victims of violence than proponents of it. Media critics have also singled out Fox News and The New York Times as outlets that have overplayed the connection between Lanza's action and any developmental disorders he may have had.

A high school advisor also said Lanza had a rare condition in which he couldn't feel pain. Here's how people with intimate knowledge of autism have been combatting the misinformation since Friday's attacks in Connecticut :. National Journal 's Ron Fournier penned a poignant account of watching his son, who has Asperger's, sifting through such coverage:.

Tyler is an Aspie. He shrugged. Autism didn't cause this tragedy Emily Willingham, a science writer who has an autistic son, wrote about the mistaken assumption that autism makes people incapable of empathy:. Research shows that people with Asperger's are not that great at cognitive empathy but that their emotional empathy does not differ from people without Asperger's Shortly after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting , someone very close to me became upset after one of her co-workers made a comment disparaging autistic people.

The shooter in that case was a young man named Adam Lanza, and while news outlets did their best not to focus on the fact that he was on the autism spectrum , those who have prejudices about individuals with this condition — with my condition — often noticed that detail.

Six years later, new light has been shed on Lanza — who killed 26 innocent people at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, after murdering his mother and before committing suicide — because the Hartford Courant acquired more than 1, pages of documents about him from the Connecticut State Police. There are many disturbing facts about Lanza in those documents, such as that he kept a spreadsheet about mass murderers, obsessed over pedophilia and kept a lengthy list of daily grievances.

Diagnosed as a child with a sensory disorder and delays in speech, he would exhibit a quick mind for science, computers, math, and language. The few acquaintances he had as a teenager came from video game arcades and online gaming chatrooms.

The newly released writings express a wide range of emotions and rigid doctrine, from a crippling aversion to the dropped towel, food mixing on his plate and the feel of a metal door handle, to a deep disdain for relationships, an intolerance of his peers, a chilling contempt for anyone carrying a few extra pounds, and a conviction that certain aspects of living are worse than death.

The Courant also noted that Lanza's social isolation "had its roots in his developmental speech delays as a child, the first of a string of diagnoses that included Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Sensory Integration Deficit, and Autism Spectrum Disorder. When I spoke with a medical expert about the stigmas associated with being on the autism spectrum, she didn't hold back.