Pardon me while I ramble on about a bunch of stuff that confuses me.
In this article, Cho's relative states that he was given a diagnosis of autism when he was young. I wonder what his behaviors were and what kind of testing was done. I'm sure there are some behaviors of psychopaths ( or maybe schizophrenics) and autistics that are similar. Forgive me, I don't know the DSM IV for all of these things, I'm no Dr. Helen, but I know that autism in children used to be called childhood schizophrenia. It seems possible to misdiagnose schizophrenia as autism too. A paranoid fear of the people around you could make you behave in an autistic manner. You would avoid eye contact, be a loner, be highly sensitive to a lot of environmental stimuli because of a high level of anxiety. Conversely, you could be highly unresponsive to the environment around you due to existing in a dream world. Maybe you would avoid talking to others to the point that your speech is impeded, as Cho's very obviously was. These behaviors go under the autism umbrella. Autistics also suffer from sometimes violent and dramatic meltdowns. Do schizophrenics do the same thing? Is this also bi-polar behavior? Of course a person could be diagnosed with both disorders. How terrible. But autism carries with it a lot of co-morbid conditions like anxiety disorder and bi-polar disorder.
This case really brings home to me why it is so important to get the proper diagnosis for your child, especially if they are violent. You get the diagnosis so that you can get the proper treatments, not so you can go "Hey, I know why Bobby's weird. He's autistic," then leave it at that and release him into the world, where he could still be a danger to himself and others. It seems like that's what Cho's parents did.
The behavioral problems associated with autism can be helped with diet, medications, occupational therapies, and social skills groups. Sometimes as a highly functioning autistic child grows up they become more aware of themselves and their relationship to their environment, they become better able to move through the world by making adjustments. I'm not saying that autistic people can't be violent, but I don't think a psychotic person could do that kind of adjusting. They have lost touch with reality, and need some major interventions and medications. And they don't need to be let loose at a University.
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I'm glad someone has finally had the courage to call a spade a spade and talk about Cho's parents. I do grieve for and with them, but let's face it, they could not have been unaware of the fact that their son was mentally ill. So perhaps for cultural reasons (shame) or perhaps so as not to have to deal with it, they send him off to college. He is completely isolated and made to feel aware, 24/7, of the fact that he has no friends while everyone around him does have social interaction. He stayed alone in the dorms over Christmas and spring breaks. What kind of parents don't insist that their children come home on breaks? These parents sound like they were solely motivated by financial reaons, to have a more comfortable life materialistically; to push the daughter (the normal one) to great success to secure their own retirement through her, and just farm out the boy and leave him to his own devices. This boy needed a great deal of help and support. HE needed to be in some kind of school or environment with people like himself and with professionals who were trained to handle him. But most of all, he needed love and attention, and he got none of that.
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