28% of murderers thought to have suffered from ASD

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I want to add that in this study they mentioned a researcher named Fitzgerald that wants to create an aspergers subcategory called Criminal Autistic Psycopathy. WHAT THE HELL??
" Fitzgerald (2010) has suggested that Autistic Psychopathy may underlie the motivation of some of these serial killers. He suggests a new diagnosis Criminal Autistic Psychopathy, a subcategory of Asperger's syndrome."

Also in the literature review (is this the name in english?) they say: "Various follow-up studies suggest that people with ASDs are no more likely to commit violent crime than the general population, and may even be less likely (Mouridsen et al., 2008 and Woodbury-Smith et al., 2006)." and "The question of whether or not there is a link between ASD and extreme violence is still unanswered because empirical research investigating offenders with ASDs is relatively rare"
so why drawing any conclusions?

One more thing, check out the sources used, for instance, that of Anders Behring (as others have showed): Norwegian mass killer Anders Breivik has a rare, high-functioning form of Asperger's that has left him incapable of empathy or real friendship, one of Norway's most prominent psychiatrists has told a court in Oslo.
Professor Ulrik Fredrik Malt of Olso University told the court: 'It is plausible that there is Asperger's, Tourette's, and a narcissistic personality disorder.'
As evidence, he cited the lack of emotion Breivik showed when discussing those he killed, his impressive memory for details, his obsession with numbers, his hypergraphia [obsessive writing], and his monotonous tone of voice.
really?
I hate the way they turn murderers into celebrities by the way. this is sooo counterproductive. specially for iminent murderes with narcisistic personality disorders. damn it this is all wrong.

maybe I am talking too much, but I want to reinforce the criticism of the methods of suggesting murderers have asd. Check this out: For the six individuals with definite ASD, none had clear accounts of diagnostic assessments involving standardized assessment tools described in the literature really? and this: For those with possible/probable ASD, accounts varied from being described as ?odd? to being a loner, with few friends or withdrawn. In many cases, we have included the individual in the category of ?possible ASD? because of suggestive descriptions ? such as the individual being ?a loner?
now people with no assessment are labeled possible asd because they have been described as loners?

I swear this is the last thing I am going to say by now. I would be incredibly scared of a person with asd and narcisistic personality disorder and/or psycopathy and/or being a serial killer. That's because of the black-and-white thinking, obssessions and rigid convictions. Imagine! their perception of the world would be polarized and rigid and no one could disilude them from their obssessions. this is damn scary

NPD and psychopathy both feature black and white thinking.

By the researchers' stringent criteria, eberryone I know has possible ASD, and eberryone I see regularly has definite ASD.

Yes, this.

Sweetleaf - btbnnyr is a researcher who specializes in autism research. She knows whereof she speaks. This is why the study is useless.

Very well said.

Furthermore I wouldn't put it past certain agencies to program people to do horrendous things that they can hold up as an example in the media to make "undesirables" look bad.

I didn't know it was a blatantly false statistic, and not sure where the 2.6% comes from....is there a link to the study that confirms that was the actual % they found? I don't know I read the article, made sense to me and I didn't have a problem with it or see it as offensive....and I have been reading the thread.

1. It seems like even with the 28% the majority of murderers aren't autistic if 2.6 is the real % then even less murderers have autism, the article to me seems to suggest some murderers have autism...so that is why I don't see it as falsehood being spread about me or a group I am in.

2. Not sure I get your point or how my response had nothing to do with your post....you essentially said articles like this would make people think people with autism are automatically more likely to be murderers I don't see where any of that is implied in the article so I assume someone would have to be stupid to take that out of it and judge all autistics as murders....so I don't feel studies should be held back because stupid people might jump on 'autistic murderers' and assume we'd all commit murder. Don't see how that was not a response to saying articles like this essentially give us bad publicity.

I never suggested people snap just because of mental illness and neurological disorders....I said I can see how they would be factors take those two things, combine it with being treated like crap at school and potentially being treated like crap at home on top of mental illness and a neurological disorder, and yeah then someone could snap and instead of just harming or killing them self they do so to others perhaps it has somewhat to do with if they internalize or externalize anger and all kinds of other factors as well. I think those factors are more likely to cause someone to snap than simply being white and male...though it is certainly true a majority of serial killers/mass murders in the U.S have been white males however I have heard of a few females and not all are white.

And once again I have read the thread, just thought I'd state my opinion on the article and what I've gathered from the comments thus far...but I guess all I accomplished was looking like an idiot who's too stupid to know whats going on I should go back to my cave where I belong probably.... would that be an accurate description?

Looked at the first post containing the article again...it clearly states that 28% might have had autism...because it says people who had definate, probable or suspected autism and then a lesser % of them also possibly had brain damage and psychological problems. I mean it never tries to state all the murderers where diagnosed with autism....I just don't see what the issue is when the article is clear about all those flaws within it.

I think 28% is a small number. I wonder how many NTs are killers. It would be interesting to see the percentage. I can imagine the number would also be small too, probably smaller than 28% because there are far more NTs than there are people with ASDs.

I call bs

The 2.6% statistic is discussed earlier in this thread.

I linked to the actual study as well, earlier in this thread. That's where someone else got the 2.6% statistic.

It's not about being offensive. It's about spreading misinformation. And of course it's written to make sense. That doesn't mean it's true.



It doesn't have to claim that the majority of murderers are autistic to be disproportionate. Like, the highest rate of autism found was in Korea at ~2.5% among schoolchildren. The CDC's current numbers are lower than that. So, if you have 1-2% of the population is autistic, and then this article 28% of murderers are autistic, then that suggests (falsely in this case, because no other study even hints that this is likely) that points to the notion that autistic people are significantly more likely to be murderers.

Current CDC statistics say 1 in 68 people are autistic.
This article claims that 1 in 4 murderers are autistic.

This rate is 17 times higher. So what this means is that yes, there are fewer autistic murderers than non-autistic murderers, but it also suggests that any autistic person you know is 17 times more likely to be a killer.



I said that articles like this would encourage the belief that autistic people are more likely to be murderers than other demographics. This has been demonstrated in the past when Jared Loughner went on his shooting spree, and all it took was a few people suggesting the possibility that he was autistic for people to start connecting autism to murderers. This isn't a thing that I assume to be the case, this is something that actually happened. The same thing happened after Adam Lanza went on his killing spree. People started speculating he was autistic and suddenly people were talking about autistic people as potentially dangerous.

If articles linking a single mass murderer to autism can prompt people to start concern trolling left and right about how autism causes violence or how their autistic children are potentially dangerous, then it is not remotely a stretch to predict that an article suggesting that 28% of murderers are autistic would have a similar effect on perceptions. And the next time a spree killer does his spree thing, and is theorized to be autistic, you will see this article pulled up to buttress faulty arguments.



I did not say that all of them are white men. I said that the primary demographic that goes on killing sprees is white men. White men commit 70% of the mass killings, but everyone spends all their time talking about autism and schizophrenia and psychopathy and literally anything but the fact that the majority of spree killers are white men.



No, I don't think you're an idiot. I do not understand why you're arguing information that was debunked several pages back. You have also characterized people who disagree with the article as being offended, as believing things no one ever claimed. You say that the statistics are reasonable and say you don't see why people reject them when the statistics themselves are false, and have been debunked in this thread - the study itself never states that 28% of these people were highly likely to be autistic. The criteria they used were so loose that just about anyone anywhere could be diagnosed as autistic. If statistics are false, they are automatically not reasonable.



The article says this:



It also says this:



And this:



That does not look like "might have had autism." That looks like "28% were thought to have ASD." and "28% were definite, highly probable, or possible ASD." Which fails to communicate the nuance that the "definite" category was 2.6% of the murderers, and the criteria used to determine this were also very loose and inaccurate.

Actually, it's probably a very high overrepresentation if the figure is accurate.

Being as about 1-2% of the general population has an ASD.

Keep in mind that killers tend to be poked and prodded by quacks and doctors after arrest/conviction etc whereas there are plenty of undiagnosed people like myself not added to official autism stats despite the likelihood of being on the spectrum. Then there's all the people who are undiagnosed and don't even know about the spectrum much less suspect that they're on it. If near 100% of the population was tested the number of people with enough traits to diagnose would probably sky rocket and reduce that 28% figure drastically.

Alright I'd have to look at your link, I must have missed it....I am just confused about what part is misinformation aside from the 28% if the actual study does indeed actually say 2.6%, the article does clearly state that they didn't base that figure on people that where diagnosed per-say but also some that maybe had traits pointing in that direction I just think it is pretty straight forward about how they got the information and came to the conclusion they did.

Also the article clearly states that this information should NOT be taken to mean that any autistic person is more likely to murder...but I suck at numbers, so not sure how it ends up meaning any autistic person is 17% more likely to be a murderer, I admit I cannot follow your math can't really follow any math, to me it looks like less then half of people with autism might murder.

Yeah so people might see the article and decide it means people with autism are generally more dangerous, hence why I said people who jump to that conclusion are stupid or at least being stupid about that topic....of course people react that way, and always jump on the 'OMG maybe they had autism or some other mental condition bandwagon' I do not think that is intelligent at all.

Ok so the majority of people who have committed mass murders are white males....but in general I doubt white males are any more prone to violence then say black males so I don't think skin color or gender would be the most significant factors as to why someone goes on a shooting spree or becomes a serial killer. I thought the point of this article though was to encourage society to adress the factors that contribute to that sort of violence, including social factors and providing help to people having trouble coping with life before it escalates that far.....but maybe I misunderstood and they are trying to do some kind of fear mongering it just doesn't come off that way.

Also I came in this thread a few pages late, so I wasn't aware everything was already debunked and it was already proven the article is evil and the study never said 28%....I read the OP the article states the study came to the conclusion 28% might be on the spectrum so I posted what I thought of that article, sorry I didn't know all that other stuff ahead of time.

Also those quotes are exactly what I was referring to with my statement, It clearly states 'thought to have had autism' not 'where diagnosed with autism' or 'have autism' so the wording does imply its not saying 28% for sure have autism.

Alright found the link, and even in there it says 28%....can't see anywhere it says 6.2% instead however it is 28% of 239 people, not even 28% of 'all' murderers so yeah article misrepresents stuff a bit but it still does not say 6.2% rather than 28% anywhere.

The article says that 2.6% met the criteria for autism, and there are two larger groups (the largest being 28%) that have some autistic traits.

Anyway, I just realized I've been perseverating on this and basically hounding you, and I am sorry for that. So I'll try to dig up the part that lists the "levels of autisticness" but otherwise I'm going to let it go. Is that cool?