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[Parent's account was created four hours ago, and this sounds like a troll. "It's all about the programming." Ha ha, very funny. But this is HN so I will give him the benefit of the doubt.]

First, the kid isn't necessarily autistic just because he's a smart kid with behavioral problems. FTA: Autism spectrum, ADHD, Oppositional Defiant or Intermittent Explosive Disorder have all been tossed around.... You're pretty eager to jump to a diagnosis of autism without giving the other possibilities due consideration.

Second, even if he is autistic, is there a single best way to treat every autistic kid? Certainly not every autistic kid has exactly the same condition he does. Having the savvy and self-control to apologize to try to get privileges back just minutes after throwing a screaming fit is not something that every thirteen-year-old autistic kid could do. Grabbing a knife and threatening murder-suicide because you've been told to do something is also not a universal feature of autism. Even if you're right that he's autistic, and even if that's his only problem, he may need different treatment than other autistic kids.

Third, autistic kids are not naturally born to be wired to a computer the way worker bees are born to gather food and drone bees are born to breed. Temple Grandin wrote that she was very lucky to grow up in a time when children were forced to socialize and kids spent a lot of time making things with their hands instead of watching TV and playing video games. She wrote, "Even today I don't have a computer at home because it can have a hypnotic effect on me. I can get caught up watching certain screen savers for hours." You assume that he would use the computer to learn, explore, and connect, but that isn't a given. Autistic people don't naturally know what to do with a computer the way an infant knows what to do with a nipple. He might just play COD all day.

Fourth, it sounds like the mom is just fine with him being different and only wants him to learn not to be violent and destructive so he can live a life outside institutions. The way the kid is behaving, he's headed to jail or a mental hospital. It also sounds like she's taken an interest in his condition, sought a lot of advice, and tried a lot of different things. FTA: ... various meetings with probation officers and social workers and counselors and teachers and school administrators. He’s been on a slew of antipsychotic and mood altering pharmaceuticals, a Russian novel of behavioral plans. This is not a kid whose mom refuses to accept his difference. This is a kid whose mom taught his younger brothers a safety drill to execute when he picks up a weapon. She isn't aiming at "normal." She's aiming at "not a killer."

And that leads to the final and most important point: being a brilliant geek won't necessarily stop him from killing someone someday.

> "Maybe, he'll be the next Steve or Bill. Perhaps, he'll be the next Gary Mckinnon."

Or maybe something will trigger him at age 20 and he makes good on his threats.

> "This mom seems to be (insanely)attempting to program a NOT-Normal-Child into a Normal-Child."

Because the "not normal" side of the child is violent, cunningly manipulative, and possibly homicidal. There is a line at which we draw acceptable behavior - homicidal and violent intent seems pretty liberal.

This is not a typical aspie we're talking about. When a child has demonstrable, repeated, unpredictable, and extremely violent tendencies we can't just lock them in a room with a terminal and hope everything turns out ok.

"When a child has demonstrable, repeated, unpredictable..."

If its repeatable, its definitely predictable now.

Thank you for the person who posted this method(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pivotal_response_therapy), it was unknown to me before, but it seems to be what could be attempted in a majority of these situations.

As far as anyone becoming more isolated...Why does a person have to be social in the first place, isolation is sometimes exactly what is needed even, wanted. In the mindset of certain autist/apsy, Tradition(s), family-concepts-dynamics, even self-preservation are completely worthless ideological fantasies.

The violent behavior is purely reactive, and just an escalation of the manipulation technique that he is employing. He's SO SMART his brain is brute-forcing social methods of manipulation in order to obtain/achieve a goal/objective. If he is rejected one way, he will just attempt another method to get what he wants, and so on. Violence is usually the last resort of the reactions unless, he knows it will usually work the first attempt.

Its intelligence that is both the savior & the enemy here.

> "He's SO SMART his brain is brute-forcing social methods of manipulation in order to obtain/achieve a goal/objective."

This seems like wild supposition to me. We know that the child has wild mood swings and alternates between "normal" and "manipulative and violent". I don't think it's clear at all that his behavior is due to raw intelligence. To be more blunt, this seems like armchair psychology with nothing in the blog post (or the other cases referenced in this thread) to support this perspective.

There needs to be substantial support if we are to believe that a child that experiences psychotically violent phases is doing so for logically sound reasons, because our current understanding of disorders such as this point in the opposite direction.

> "As far as anyone becoming more isolated...Why does a person have to be social in the first place"

I think you're conflating two issues. There is indeed no reason to force anyone to be social - but the reality is that even in the 21st century it is practically impossible to lead a life without social contact. Even the most ardent hermit must interact with the rest of the world at some point.

The question here, in the context of the tragedy that occurred this week, is not about the child. It is about whether or not, if left alone without interference, the child will eventually pose a substantial threat to society at large. It's about the state of mental health care in this country and whether or not people like this child need to be "fixed".

And when it comes to explosively violent people - particularly people who can be set off by unpredictable triggers (the child's mother, after caring for him for years still has no handle on his triggers, and there is no real reason to believe the mother is unbelievably daft) - I emphatically believe that it is correct to pathologize this behavior.

Just as I was/am, and probably just as he is.

We are cunningly manipulative from the get-go, any emotional response from that point is just part of the game, even the fits of rage are a last-ditch effort to assert some form of dominance over the situation after we have expelled every last conceivable option/variable to achieve a set/dynamic goal or objective.

It starts with the parent not parenting an autistic child as an autistic child. The article has a few points that threw red flags immediately, that would be regular triggers for me(such as her punishment strategies for just one) also, the way she attempts to have him CONFORM to school rules though, there had clearly been an exemption made for his clothing(he wants to be free to be free, and in this conformal society, that's ludicrous)...

I hope they make it.

How many poorly-disguised sockpuppet accounts do you have, JohnLatter/LatterJohn/RettalnhoJ? Really clever on that last one, Count Alucard.

You clearly have it figured out. You should call this woman have arrange to have the kid live with you for a few months. I'm sure he will be cured.

Your last two comments may be the stupidest things I have ever heard. I would love to know more about you and know why you think you can fix such a complex problem in < 200 words.

<<Your last two comments may be the stupidest things I have ever heard>> Damn! Do you guys even read the comments before typing out these pithy replies? The guy(LatterJohn) clearly said he is coming from the OPs son's perspective. That means he had the same issues OP's kid has. In my dictionary that means he has more knowledge about this stuff than you(unless you too are autistic). He is just telling what it's like being somebody with autism/aspy from his personal experience and you are calling it "stupid"? This is exactly what is wrong with "normal" people like you, who try to model "not-normal" people with your "normal" context of life!

No-one know what the OP son's perspective is, because there is not enough information in the article to tell what the diagnosis is.

Thus, the child might be Asperger's. But so what? Are you suggesting that all people with Asperger's are the same, will react the same way to situations?

There are other equally likely diagnoses, and the consequences of following LatterJohn's advice could be disastrous.

You ARE the parent.

Why are you responding to yourself using sock-puppet accounts?

:) Next you will say man never landed on moon. Move on!

I do see that JohnLatter/LatterJohn/<blah> has created multiple accounts to post. But that doesn't make me as a sock-puppet account. It actually makes me believe that he indeed has some issues. Just because he has a different POV(and that coming from living with something similar, at-least as per his post), it doesn't make it right for folks to simply deflect it as "stupid". Things like autism/aspy are something that needs a lot more to be studied upon and folks like us can not view those folks through the same lens of "common world" as we know it. They are different and unfortunate thing is most of the time they can't really explain to me and you what that "difference" is. We force them to be like us and when they rebel we call them stupid and what not and there by pushing those folks to a corner. One fine day they explode out of all that frustration and everyone jumps up and down. That is the sad part!

No, it's obvious. I won't disclose to you why it is obvious it is you, it's not the name. It's really sad; any intelligent person can see that it is you posting several times echoing your own position.

Unfortunately, its definitely separate entities except for me.

Something that stuck out at me is this was accepted exactly as I had hoped it would be. This micro-conversation has enlightened me to a variety of diverse social attitudes towards the subject.

You're WAY over-simplifying an intense situation. You think this mother hasn't tried everything by this point? You think you know the simple, magic solution that could possibly reveal this kid to be the next Steve or Bill?

A mother is the LAST person to give up hope. A mother is the LAST person to deny alternatives to a fucking insane asylum and police force.

It's not as simple as shoving an iPad in the kids face. Respect the gravity.

This is a terrible idea. I'm sure it's an attractive idea, the childhood you wished you had, but really it sounds like a good way to let your child sink deeper into isolation.

Instituting a mild punishment to a child "WILL GET YOU KILLED"? Really?

This parent is not "insane" for trying to help her own kid, even if that might mean an institution.

There was a book about people who will starve if not allowed to read. Little geeks work the same way. Is starvation a mild punishment?

Maybe, he'll be the next Steve or Bill. Perhaps, he'll be the next Gary Mckinnon.

Or the next Hans Reiser.

Or the next person you've never heard of, because he hasn't achieved noteworthy success in business, homicide, and/or the creation of filesystems. Normal outcomes do sometimes happen (hence the name), but they don't get as much publicity.

Unfortunately, she doesn't deal with her son the way he needs to be dealt with

I understand the urge to sympathize with her son's perspective, but it's very possible that a parent, who has worked with this kid every day of his life, might know a thing or two more about how to be a parent than you do.