Adam Lanza, Asperger\'s and a Misleading Connection With Violence

1. Did Adam Lanza, who authorities have identified as the gunman in Newtown, Conn., ever receive a diagnosis of Asperger's syndrome?
2. If so, would that be relevant?
3. And has The Times been scrupulously responsible in the way it has reported on this aspect of Friday's massacre at the Sandy Hook Elementary School?

In brief, here are my conclusions, based on my own reading and a number of interviews and conversations this week.

1. Possibly.
2. It would not matter to the killing; it would help in understanding the personality and experiences of the gunman.
3. The Times's early reporting and presentation of the information was well-intentioned but flawed. (It began to remedy those flaws in a blog post Monday afternoon but had not yet done so in print on Tuesday.)

This subject is important to many of those whose l ives are affected by Asperger's or other forms of Autism Spectrum Disorder. They are troubled and angered by how the topic has been treated in The Times and other news organizations over the past several days.

Joe McGinniss, the well-known author and the father of a son who has Asperger's, is among the many who wrote to me.

“The suggestion that Asperger's might be a clue to why this happened is offensive to me,” he said in a telephone interview Tuesday. “It's misleading to suggest that quiet people who don't pick up on social cues are more likely to become killers.”

Dr. Ami Klin, an expert on autism at the Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, said that any tie between the Newtown shootings and Asperger's or autism “is an enormous disservice” to those whose lives are affected by these developme ntal disorders, which should not be confused with mental illness.

“Any human condition can coexist with violence,” he said, but no correlation should be drawn.

In fact, he said, those with Asperger's “are much more likely to be victims rather than victimizers.”

“This is not about autism,” Dr. Klin said. “It's about mental illness and guns that those with mental illness should have no access to.”

The Times was understated in its reporting on this subject and, if you were a casual reader, the reference might not have jumped out. But for those close to the situation â€" often because they are parents of autistic children â€" it certainly did.

This was the initial reference, in a Saturday print edition profile of Mr. Lanza, written on deadline:

Matt Baier, now a junior at the University of Connec ticut, and other high school classmates recalled how deeply uncomfortable Mr. Lanza was in social situations.

Several said in separate interviews that it was their understanding that he had a developmental disorder. They said they had been told that the disorder was Asperger's syndrome, which is considered a high functioning form of autism.

“It's not like people picked on him for it,” Mr. Baier said. “From what I saw, people just let him be, and that was that.”

Law enforcement officials said Friday that they were closely examining whether Mr. Lanza had such a disorder.

I interviewed David Halbfinger, a reporter who was the article's author. He told me that he did not write that reference to Asperger's, but approved it after it had been inserted by an editor. He also said that the idea behind this first-day story was to find out and communicate as much as possible about Mr. Lanza.

“The fear that's being expressed is that th ere's an implied cause, but we didn't say they were investigating it as a cause,” Mr. Halbfinger said. “On the first day, law enforcement is investigating everything. To impute cause and effect is to make a giant leap that we didn't do.”

The Metro editor, Carolyn Ryan, responded in an e-mail:

We were told Adam Lanza had Asperger's from so many people who knew him that it would have been irresponsible to withhold that from readers. However, we were very careful with the language, saying that people who knew him understood he had a developmental disorder and had been told it was Asperger's. I wanted to make sure readers understood where the information was coming from, and that law enforcement had not confirmed this or officially described him as having Asperger's. The “closely examining” language was not intended to suggest that Asperger's accounted for the motive or cause, but that law enforcement officials had been told he had Asperger's an d were trying to understand his condition and his behavior.

Critics, though, say that if you want to understand how such a statement might be taken, try this hypothetical substitution: “Law enforcement officials said they were closely examining whether Mr. Lanza is gay.” There is, for a reasonable person, the suggestion of cause and effect.  It is very unlikely that that sentence would have appeared in The Times without further explanation.

References to Asperger's have now appeared in several Times articles, all based on anonymous sources or on named sources who were reporting what they had heard from someone else. It has been, in short, repeated conjecture by those who don't know. On Monday, The Associated Press reported that a divorce mediator, who was named, was told by the Lanzas that their son had Asperger's, and The Times began r eporting that on The Lede blog. The blog post did a great deal to explain the issue clearly and responsibly.

If there were solid sourcing last week of the Asperger's diagnosis, the issue of its relevance could have been handled in a clarifying follow-up sentence - for example: “Autism and Asperger's are developmental disorders, not mental illnesses; and there is no connection between them and violent behavior.”

Mr. Halbfinger protested when I suggested the idea of such an explanation, particularly in a first-day story. “To me, it seems kind of ridiculous; that's the journalistic equivalent of a nanny state,” he said. He added, though, that as a parent himself, he does understand how parents feel about this subject. And he sees that there may be a “knowledge deficit” â€" people may not know very much about autism and Asperger's.

The story by The A.P. did have such a sentence as its last paragraph.

I think that is helpful and necessary. Cause and effect had been suggested; and something should have been done â€" and still can be - to clear up that troubling misconception. And while this may be of greatest concern to those who have a family member with Asperger's or autism, it's broader than that. These are questions of clarity and accuracy - and those affect everyone. But more optimistically, there is now an opportunity to do some educating. I hope that happens.