A Virginia case involving an adolescent with Asperger’s who faces a 10-year prison sentence for assault raises questions about whether society can protect the impaired. What strategies can psychiatrists give patients to help them control their aggression?
It is difficult to grasp the complexities of this case. A statement from the Stafford County, Va., sheriff’s office says that the adolescent was charged with several counts, including one count of "knowingly disarming a police officer in performance of his official duties," after assaulting the officer last year in the parking lot of a high school.
According to the statement, a call came into the county’s sheriff’s office one morning last May saying that a "suspicious male," possibly in possession of a gun, was sitting on the grass outside a library, which was directly across from an elementary school. When police units arrived on the scene, they were unable to find the young man. At 20 minutes into the search, the statement says, a school resource officer saw the young man coming out of the woods behind the high school. When the officer asked for identification, the teenager reportedly "proceeded to attack and assault the deputy for no apparent reason."
After other officers arrived on the scene, the teenager was taken into custody, and the officer was transported to a hospital with a head laceration, cuts, abrasions, and a broken ankle. The officer reportedly had to retire because of his injuries. A gun was never found.
The young man, who is black and had been diagnosed with Asperger’s disorder and "pervasive developmental disorder – not otherwise specified," according to his mother’s blog, eventually was found guilty of assaulting a law enforcement officer. A jury recommended that he serve a 10.5-year sentence; as of this writing, he is scheduled to be sentenced on May 19.
This is one of those heart-wrenching cases that make us wish that the general public had a better understanding of mental illness, particularly disorders such as Asperger’s. Why would a person with a disability receive such a harsh sentence? Why did the officer fail to recognize that the young man was disturbed? What role did race play in the way the incident unfolded?
Press reports say that the young man’s mother is distraught and that she has received a great deal of support from the community to try to get her son freed. But the symbols of man’s inhumanity to man are emblazoned all over this case.
Asperger’s syndrome is characterized by occasional aggressive outbursts; poor social skills; failure to develop peer relationships; abnormal, nonverbal communication; and numerous other nuances. The failure to develop social skills would make a child in school an easy person to victimize. Children and adolescents with special needs are among the groups that are at great risk of being bullied, according to a paper published recently by Robin M. Kowalski, Ph.D., (Res. Autism Spectr. Disord. 2011 [doi:10.1016/jrasd.2011.01.007]). However, sorting through these issues is particularly challenging when it comes to young people with autism spectrum disorders, because often they are bullies themselves.
In fact, Dr. Kowalski found that – because these young people are able to use all kinds of electronic devices – they are both cyberbullied and cyberbullies. Of course, all kinds of bullying involve an imbalance of power. The failure of some people with Asperger’s to read social cues is critical. "Children with Asperger’s ... often fail to pick up on social cues that would allow for fluent social interactions, often lack verbal fluency, are frequently overly sensitive to particular auditory or tactile sensations, and are unyielding in their need for a routine, characteristics that make them likely candidates for bullying by others who see them as odd and different," she wrote. These patients "frequently behave in aggressive ways, which increases the probability that they might perpetrate bullying behaviors."
Asperger’s is difficult to treat, but some strategies have been identified that address some of the problematic behaviors these patients exhibit. For example, according to researchers in Virginia, a mindfulness-based strategy can help adolescents with Asperger’s shift their focus from the negative emotion triggered by the aggressive behavior to a neutral stimulus: the soles of their feet (Res. Autism Spectr. Disord. 2011;5:1103-9).
The study was very small – just three adolescent boys with Asperger’s participated. All had been on new-generation antipsychotics at least one time before enrolling in the study. All three showed minimal aggressive behaviors at school, but their parents found that they were unable to manage their aggressive behaviors at home or during community outings.