Are autistics agressive?

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My nephew is very aggressive. He's now going to a special school for kids with ASDs who have similar problems (about 50 or so kids there), as he can't handle normal school (he's in the principal's office more than not, and threats of the school being sued due to the aggression is telling). He's ok for a bit, but he then blows up and Hulk Smashes everything due to frustration.

Hans Asperger listed aggressive behaviour as a point of note in his paper.

(I'm not aggressive.)

I have a nephew (12) who seems to demonstrate some really good quality ODD traits and so does his younger sister

The last time we had the pleasure and honor of hosting (surviving) them, the word NO is the ONLY thing I can recall them saying, with or without the tears.

It was a real mess

Aggress it topic

I was rarely physically aggressive as i was not overly large as a child, and would suffer group aggression if I retaliated physically. So I developed a type of verbal aggressive behaviour which did not bode well in certain circles. It was just enough to return anger without resulting in nasty fights. Now I tend to be impersonal with whom I disagree, and this works well for me.

Dont know about being aggressive, but perhaps overly defensive (i tend to get like that when people start to "mess" with me). If anything, what aggression we do have is a result of stress (like being interrupted whenever we're focused on something), so yeah, defensive would be a good word. I honestly dont know of anyone in the spectrum who snapped and went on a murder spree . . . probably felt like it, but we seem to have a bit more control over ourselves in that respect.

I am very aggressive. I have to take meds for it.

BTW, is ODD the new ADHD? You know, the "disease" that describes almost every child. Expect the pharm companies to cash in big on that one.

I have heard and read that ADHD may be one of the conduits to creativity.

I haven't heard or read that about ODD.

As I approach my mid century and look back at how children behaved with their parents (or adults) when I was a child, compared to how they seem to behave now, I can see how the decay in general manners in children might be mistaken for ODD by some people.

Of course, throwing around the ODD label allows parents to absolve them of ANY responsibility for their children's poor behaviour, lack of courtesy and general bad manners.

We don't hit our children and never have and never will, but they DO respect us and display good manners with everyone they meet.

Last edited by Blindspot149 on 08 Feb 2010, 1:59 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I was physically aggressive towards other kids as a child because I had difficulty controlling my anger. Since I learned to control myself, I haven't been violent towards anyone.

As someone who got into a few skirmishes as a kid, I'd say I wasn't so much aggressive as unpredictable. I would appear passive and docile and then suddenly scream and punch someone in the face. To me, that's worse than just being aggressive - whereas if you're "just" aggressive people might be able to toe the line, if you're unpredictable people don't really know how to toe the line and would rather just avoid you. As I grew older and matured a bit I think my temper slowly faded but I've seen that odd edginess in some other people with AS (albeit perhaps not manifested in quite the same way) and it's definitely not an asset, especially if taken into adulthood.

I would class myself as a calm person but can get aggressive when I'm in a very bad mood when I was younger and I would go on for hours and hours that people got so exhausted.

I don't really do it now, its more like a meltdown, still occasionally shout and have a little tantrum and then end up in a meltdown point.

Yeah, that was the scary thing about the girl I knew. She would be peaceful one second and then lunge across the room the next. She wasn't cruel or angry, just very unpredictable and violent at times and the lack of warning made her scary. She was quite sweet the rest of the time though.

The cognitive extremes and variation of AS/ASD are frequently discussed here, but I suspect we have emotional response imbalances as well. Some AS will have enhanced anger reactions, and others very muted. I have very muted anger and fear responses, and have never been in a physical altercation in my life. My supposition is that other AS have equally abnormal anger/fear responses, but in the opposite direction.

I always suspected that if ODD is real I deffinatly have it. I had extremly violent rages as a kid. My mother still has scars from when I lunged on her. She often got the worst of my rages. The "experts" said it was because she was the only person I could truely trust and let my gaurd down when around. I would attack my mom at the drop of a hat. I was TERRIFIED of my dad because he would go loose his temper a lot and go into rages too. He never attacked my mom but left huge bruises on me and threw me into walls and would threaten to knock my teeth out.


The last time someone insulted me to my face was almost two decades ago. I've encontered some really nasty cyber bullies and if someone was stupid enough to say those things to my face, I would have tackled them and mercilessly beat the living daylights out of them. I get such an adriline rush when I get this pissed and angry I go into a violent range and litterly cannot feel pain whatsoever. If someone hits me back, it just gives me more of an adriline rush and makes me fight even harder. I even considered becoming one of those cage fighters at a time. If someone says something truely offensive such as "ass-pie" or "ass bugger" or says truely horrible things about my meerkat special intrest to my face they better watch their backs because I WILL NOT hesitate to physicaly beat the s**t out of them.

As a rule those with aperger's are more inclined to withdraw rather than be outwardly aggressive. Pushed into a corner tho anyone is likely to lash out. One thing I learned from my son's psychiatrist is that the older ADHD medications have a significant side effect of making the children aggressive. Did you take any such medications as a child? ie ridlin

Yes, I did take Ritalyn at six. I took other things such as prozac at nine and whole landaury list of a cocktail. None of them did what they were supposed to do either. Instead of actualy listning to me, they just doped me up on more and more drugs. I was severly bullied as a child, even by teachers. One in pitucliar seemed to get a thrill out of belitting me in front of everyone. Most of my agression was simple retalation because when I tried to report the bullying, I was either told it was my fault or that it was all in my head. If someone did say there were going to do something they never did. Kids would hit me or say something nasty to me to provoke me and then when I tried to fight back I was the one punished and told to quit lying when I said that so and so provoked me. Even kids who actualy saw it happen would side with the bully.

I tend to think of myself as a living, breathing Yellowstone Park of sorts. Passive, gentle, yet beneath me, a monsterous eruption awaits (little geology moment, heh... )


That's not to say I never got ticked off royally before. I had my fair shares of screaming and yelling at bullies before (I had to drop out because of it )

I wouldn't characterize myself as aggressive as I'm not overly assertive. However, I am quick to anger and am much more prone than the average person to becoming completely consumed with rage. I scare myself with how angry I can get sometimes. I've broken doors and put holes in walls as well as screamed obscenities and death threats at people. In the worst case scenario I can see myself capable of homicide. I associate these extreme out-of-control feelings more with depression than autism though. When I'm hurting there's nothing worse than feeling weak and powerless so I tend to compensate by feeling angry and hateful. When I feel wronged or treated unjustly on top of everything else is when I can go berserk.