Adam Lanza, the young man responsible for the Sandy Hook school shooting didn't receive any documented psychological assistance since 2006.
The Connecticut Post has the link to the new report by The Office of the Child Advocate. The 144 page report, which refers to Adam as 'AL' puts most of the blame on his mother for enabling, rather than providing access to competent treatment. It notes that his Asperger's Syndrome has nothing to do with the violent outcome, but does say that ~
"That AL had ready access to (assault weapons and high capacity ammunition clips) cannot be ignored as a critical factor in this tragedy."
In New Hampshire , Adam was first diagnosed at a young age with an articulation disorder by the school district, but it appears that his expressive language was the primary disability. The two are distinct, as the latter is the more important of the two for effective social interaction.
Expressive communication disorders are often associated with poor social skills and autism, the report said. Yet, the only intervention Lanza was given was speech therapy.
He also demonstrated persevarative, sensory integration and motor difficulties, none of which were addressed.
Mrs. Lanza took Adam to Yale Child Study, which provided an extensive evaluation and many recommendations. All, unfortunately were ignored or dismissed by the family.
There were foreshadowing of future events ~
Just before his fifth birthday he was found to be extremely active, never slept through the night, continued speaking in his own private language and developed repetitive behaviors and tantrums where he would sit and repeatedly strike his own head.
After moving to Newtown and while in the 5th grade, he and a fellow classmate wrote an extremely violent and disturbing comic called
The Big Book of Granny, which didn't raise any red flags.
Granny robs a bank with a bullet-spewing cane. She guns down soldiers at a Marine boot camp and travels back in time and murders The Beatles. She threatens to shoot and kill children in a classroom.
And often, the violence is between Granny and her son. Granny kicks the boy into a burning fireplace, punches him in the face and shoots at him. After the bank robbery, the son shoots Granny in the head with a shotgun.
Newtown didn't provide much help for Adam's many issues:
It is clear in the correspondence as well from present-day interviews with district personnel, that the educational team felt they were “thinking outside the box” for AL, and making deliberate and well- intended efforts to meet AL’s complex needs through careful and extensive partnership with his mother. However, the emails appear indicative of a partnership around a strategy of habituation, or even of appeasement, without a skilled, therapeutic, expert-driven approach that would help AL adapt to the world.
Adam's pediatrician did recommend that a neurological test, but again his mother ignored it. The doctor appeared not to have followed up with that. The report also commented that the physician prescribed hand cream for Adam's compulsive hand washing and a laxative for his drastic weight loss (Adam was 6' and weighed 112 lbs. at the time of his death). However, the office of DCF (Department of Children and Families) was never contacted, even though the doctor was also aware that Adam wasn't attending school. Caregivers in Connecticut are also legally mandated to contact child protective services if they feel there is danger of neglect or abuse. However,
From the report:
Individuals can, of course, disagree as to whether AL’s parents’ decision to permit him to stay home or attend tutoring rather than attend school and the decision to stop pursuing mental health treatment after 10th grade falls under the category of decisions that parents are free to make regardless of outside disagreement. But individuals may also conclude here that to be presented with a youth with profound and chronic disabilities who was removed systematically (or permitted to remove himself) from opportunities for treatment and education, raised a reasonable basis for concern regarding the capacity of his caregivers to meet his needs, and that additional steps should have been taken.
Adam grew up in a household filled with guns and extensive ammo. An early picture show him as a toddler with his mouth on a gun and ammo draped over his lap.
The report documents some connections with firearms, mental illness and school shootings:
“A widely cited 2010 study in the American Journal of Law & Economics showed that gun-related homicides in Australia dropped 59% between 1995 and 2006. The firearm-suicide rate dropped 65%.”88 This was after meaningful gun control regulations which outlawed possession of assault weapons were passed following a mass shooting. Great Britain has also shown a marked reduction in gun crimes since instituting a hand gun ban following a mass school shooting which occurred in 1996.89
The conclusion that access to guns drives shooting episodes far more than the presence of mental illness is inescapable. Those countries that have tight gun controls in general experience less overall gun violence and have fewer episodes per capita of mass shootings. Further, there is good reason to believe that the nearly ubiquitous presence of assault weapons and high capacity bullet clips enhances the number of individuals likely to be shot in shooting incidents. We also know that the period during which a shooter must reload provides an opportunity for others to stop the shooter or to escape. Jared Loughner’s massacre in Tuscon, Arizona ended only when, after emptying a 33 round magazine, killing and wounding another, he was subdued by bystanders while attempting to exchange magazines. In Sandy Hook Elementary School, eleven children escaped from their classroom while AL was exchanging the clip in his automatic weapon. The smaller the capacity of the clip, the more reloading episodes there will be, and the greater the opportunity for escape or rescue by law enforcement.
It is reasonable to wonder what actions AL would have taken and whether the Sandy Hook tragedy could have occurred at all if he had not had unfettered access to significant weaponry and ammunition.
More here from the Connecticut Mirror ~
http://ctmirror.org/...
As a note, I'm a Connecticut teacher and as they say, this happened right in my backyard. Several teachers in my school are Newtown residents, and a teacher from my district lost a child in the incident.