#HOW TO YOU PRONOUNCE ASPERGERS MOVIE#

Rather than rushing to publish disclaimers, is it not possible that, through this horrific exception to the general rule that autistics only harm themselves and those close to them, we might learn something about ourselves?Īmid the rush of autism advocates, educators, and experts trying to disassociate themselves from Lanza, the remarks of Dr. Perhaps they envision a demon, riding alongside him, loading ammo into those high-capacity magazines? The community has reacted as though there were in fact a definitive “something” which would compel a person not only to pump four bullets into the head of his mother as she lay in bed, but to then pack up the car with military gear, drive about five miles to the elementary school, and methodically gun down twenty first graders and a handful of adults who got in his way. As if this will shovel him off into the ranks of another, persecuted minority. It must have been something else, Asperger’s advocates reason, as though this will protect us. “There is really no clear association between Asperger’s and violent behavior,” echoes psychologist Elizabeth Laugeson, an assistant clinical professor at UCLA. It must have been something else, Asperger’s advocates reason, as though this will protect us, shovel him off into the ranks of another persecuted minority.Ī website for families affected by high-functioning autism boldly declared in a press release: “We at MAAP wish to state that the vast majority of individuals with autism spectrum challenges (this includes Asperger syndrome) are not capable of the detailed planning and completion of the diabolical plans reportedly involved in this tragedy.” Now it is the autism community’s turn to recoil in horror and declare that no, he could not have possibly been one of us the Autism Society has issued a press release stating that “it is imperative to remove autism from this tragic story.”Īlex Plank, autism self-advocate and founder of has written for CNN, pleading that we leave autism out of the discussion of these mass shootings and arguing that “the speculations are needless, untrue and hurtful.” The well-known author Joe McGinniss, father of an aspie son, told the New York Times, “the suggestion that Asperger’s might be a clue as to why this happened is offensive to me.” The Asperger’s Association of New England (AANE) complains that “it is painful and frightening to feel associated by virtue of a diagnosis with someone who has committed such a horrific crime.” Recently it was reported that Adam Lanza, the shooter in the Connecticut elementary school massacre, may have had Asperger’s syndrome. “wars”) have been planned and executed by neurotypicals just like themselves who were perfectly sane-unless you consider “drunk with power” a cognizable mental disorder. I wonder if these sanctimonious pundits realize that the most devastating instances of mass carnage (a.k.a. As an adult with Asperger’s syndrome who has been marginalized all her life, I feel very uncomfortable when anyone, even someone unsavory, is summarily written out of the human race. To call someone “deranged” or “mad” is to marginalize them, to declare that they are “not one of us.” Indeed, it is to say that he or she is not really human at all. Each time I hear that, I cringe, not because of any sympathy for the guilty party or because it is a slur against the mentally disabled, but because of the smugness of the speaker.

#HOW TO YOU PRONOUNCE ASPERGERS MOVIE#

Image courtesy the Valley Independent SentinelĮach time a horrific crime is in the news, commentators characterize the perpetrator as “the madman” or “the deranged individual,” or announce that “a person suffering from mental illness” walked into the school… the mall… the movie theater….

How to you pronounce aspergers