Autism and filicide

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Yes, I think it is inappropriate for two reasons.

On the one hand, the percentages reflect different populations, so they aren't directly comparable.

On the other hand, setting these different stats as if they were comparable suggests that we should make judgments about the relative importance of these murders. I think this is wrong on ethical grounds and it's better not to open that debate.

An autistic person has no risk of being murdered by their parents when they are not in the care of their parents. A black person has good reason to fear being murdered by the police if they have their hands in their pockets because it is cold, or reach into their vehicle to get their drivers license and registration when approached by the police, or are carrying a candy bar, flashlight, etc., etc. There is no comparable random risk of being murdered by parents for autistic people. This is just one of many ways in which the two types of homicide are not very comparable.

But the stats about parents murdering their autistic children stand up very well on their own. I think powerful infographics can be made of this data without doing a questionable comparison with stats about racially biased police killings.

OK, I'll only use v. neurotypicals for relative risks. Obviously that is limited by the differing sample sizes and other missing controls.

Yes, I definitely see that. I'm certainly not trying to make a moral judgement or diminish other stats, rather provide some kind of yardstick, and I was very keen to point that out in the infographic. I just think it's very easy to go "oh, 250 a year, that's less than one a day, thousands of people are murdered every year..."

Any suggestions of better yardsticks? Deaths crossing the street? Autistic people getting married?

If autism is hereditary then it's possible that the parents are also on the spectrum. This might lead some to have less effective coping skills as parents. Mix in co-morbids like depression and it's not a good situation. I am not saying that autistic parents are more likely to commit filicide, but the mental state of the parents could be a factor.

I think teaching parents of autistic kids what to expect and how to deal with it is a great idea.