'Asperger’s, Autism, and Mass Murder', by John Elder Robison. The discussion post-Sandy Hook shooting

Last night I read with interest this piece posted by notable author John Elder Robison. John is the author of 'Raising Cubby', 'Look Me in the Eye', 'My Life with Asperger’s', and 'Be Different - adventures of a free range Aspergian.'

John is also member of the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee of the US Department of Health and Human Services. He serves on the Scientific and Treatment Boards of Autism Speaks, the largest private source of autism research funding.

John grew up in the 1960s before the Asperger diagnosis had come into common use, and before 'autism spectrum' was fully understood. After dropping out of high school, he worked in the music business where he created sound effects and electronic devices, the best known of which were the signature guitars he built for the band KISS. Later, he founded Robison Service, a specialty automobile company. 

He wrote an interesting, thought-provoking piece for 'Psychology Today' titled: 'Asperger’s, Autism, and Mass Murder: Let’s stop the rush to judgment.'

"Whenever something horrible happens the public and the media look for answers... factoids to explain what may be truly inexplicable. Whatever information can be discovered is tossed out into public view in the hope that somehow a bunch of discrete facts and data points will somehow provide the answers everyone is seeking.

This happens whether the event is a catastrophic fire, a plane crash, or a mass killing. Thanks to the Internet, people all over the world speculate about what happened and why, often in the absence of any firsthand information. The result: a rush to judgment, and all too often - innocent people harmed.

Sometimes these early speculations are prescient. When reporters observed an aviation mishap and said, “the same thing happened on another flight a few years ago,” that report led to the discovery of a flaw in an aircraft’s design, and the potential saving of many lives when a design defect was corrected.

Unfortunately, on other occasions, early speculation proves unfounded, wrong, or irrelevant.  When that happens, innocent people are often harmed by the rush to judgment. I’m very concerned that is occurring right now, as the public digests news reports about the Sandy Hook school murders.

Reporters are saying the killer had Asperger’s Syndrome, a form of autism. Every time a news story does that – by tying “killer” and “Asperger’s” in the same sentence – they are at some level implying that there is a connection between autism and mass murder. There’s not.

Statisticians have a phrase for this situation: Correlation does not imply causation. Let me explain that by way of an example. Three banks are robbed, in three different cities.  Each bank had security cameras trained on the entrances.  In each case, a review of the tapes showed a white Toyota Camry turning into the parking lot, moments before the robbery.

Was that a clue? Was the same car used to rob all three banks? No. It was a random, irrelevant coincidence. In fact, white Camrys are one of the most common cars in the country and we might observe them at the scene of most anything, without any causative connection at all.

How about this factoid: Most school shooters are Caucasian males. You might find that statement a little more shocking than the previous one.  But it’s true.  Does that mean every white male Caucasian who enters a school is a potential mass murderer? Of course not

Suggesting a mass murderer had Asperger’s is much the same – it may be true, but stating the fact does nothing to explain the crime, nor does it help prevent other crimes in the future.   What it does do – and this is important – is paint a whole swath of population – Asperger people – with a brush that says “potential mass murderer.”

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What do you think of the piece?