Some news sources are reporting that the Virginia Tech killer, Cho Seung-Hu, was diagnosed with autism. The source of this information appears to be a great-aunt who lives in Korea and hasn’t seen Cho for several years. The thought of all this makes my head spin.

First off, autism doesn’t account for the sociopathic, paranoid behaviors. One thing we as parents of special kids need to make crystal clear…children with autism are NOT killers just by virtue of being autistic. Children with autism have major communication and social impairments as a result of their neurological impairments. This could, indeed, account for his garbled speech and lack of eye contact. Children with autism are occasionally violent when frustrated because they can’t communicate with the world. But they are not methodical killers. The autistic children I’ve met, even those who are high functioning and exhibit very high IQs, are not angry, cold, hardened people who feel the world has mistreated them. They are not full of a deep-seated hate, as Cyndy Aleo-Carreira points out in her Discussing Autism blog.

What if Cho was autistic? Well autism itself as a developmental disorder and doesn’t explain how he could have been so mentally ill as to commit these horrible acts. But it does explain how he could have been set up for the bullying and ridicule that is being reported by former high school classmates. And that’s the point made by a press release put out by AutismLink today. It raises the question as to why weren’t his developmental needs met? Where were the early interventions?

Still, autism alone can’t explain this.

And mothers of autistic children across this country are holding their collective breath. What does this mean for their children? What kinds of backlash will there be toward autistic children? Here are some blogs where this is being discussed:

• MOM - NOS
• Adventures in Autism • Asperger Square 8
• WrongPlanet.net

Could it have been something else? I think so. If so, what?