High Functioning Autism and Internet Dangers, Part 1: Who is at Risk?

How real are the dangers online for young people with high functioning autism and who is vulnerable? How do kids get in (and out of) the life that can sometimes lead to violent extremism?  What can you do to protect your child and what resources are available to help?

In this episode, we look at a research study that describes who is in danger and what types of dangers there are.  While the results are inconclusive as to some issues, it does suggest that high functioning autism can be a feature of someone who is radicalized, but it is just a component, and most times, a contributing factor.

Here is a link to the study: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35401260/ (Vulnerability to Ideologically-Motivated Violence Among Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder)

In the next episode of the series, titled Yes, Grooming is a Real Thing.  I’ll review a portion of a book, Black Pill, that makes the need for intervention more relevant and apparent.  We’ll see there are online dangers that both exploit and provide acceptance to kids with autism, a sometimes-dangerous mix

 IIn the third episode, Realized Radicalization, you will hear stories of kids who got caught up and became radicalized.  A group of young people were interviewed after they were able to escape the life.  But the article concentrates on how they got in and why they stayed as long as they did.

 And in the fourth episode, Keeping Your Child Safe Online, we’ll look at what research says about how to respond to the dangers.

Thanks to soundimage.org for the free access to the AI generated music used in this podcast (https://soundimage.org/) 

Transcript

                             Is the Internet safe for Autistic Youth?

                                                  Episode One

Who is at Risk

This is the first of four episodes that discuss internet dangers and ways to keep children and youth with autism safe online. 

 Today I’d like to talk about high functioning autism and the dangers of some on-line activities.

 As a source for this program, I’ll be using a research article titled, Vulnerability to Ideologically Motivated Violence Among Individuals With Autism Spectrum Disorder.  

 It was published in the journal, Frontiers in Psychiatry, in 2022.

 The article lends itself to being quoted as is, I have selected sections that are the clearest non-technical information.  So I’ll be using mainly their words.

 The authors begin, “For the past two decades researchers, journalists and psychiatrists have questioned the link between autism and extremism, including mass violence events.

 As one might expect, there is not a clear-cut answer other than that at some times, under some circumstances, autism can play a role in the development of radical views that can lead to violence.

 ASD may itself not provide useful information for understanding motivations. Instead, understanding specific traits and neuropsychological and other vulnerabilities may offer an opportunity to make sense of these very complex events.

 The authors continue:

Mental disorders such as schizophrenia and mood disorders are often cited as increasing the risk of unlawful behavior, although it is also recognized that this increased risk is modest in terms of overall numbers.

 In the context of holding extremist beliefs. These indicate that among violent extremists, between 10 and 17% have one or more mental disorders, with a range of psychiatric diagnoses represented, with mood disorder and schizophrenia the most frequent among those who are drawn to extremist ideologies or outgroup affiliations, such as incels (involuntary celibates). We are aware that a significant minority either have ASD or self-identify with this label.

 The reasons that autistic people sometimes gravitate to extremist beliefs can include a general naivety towards understanding relationships, jealousy of others or anger and frustration at their own experiences.

 This can include a naïve understanding of relationships and jealousy of others or anger and frustration at their own experiences; being coerced into unlawful behavior by dominant others; and the obsessional pursuit of a particular interest. .

 The literature has largely argued that those who engage in group sponsored) terrorism are psychologically stable and lack any enrichment for particular personality traits or specific mental disorder.  

 On the other hand, research that has focused specifically on lone-wolf terrorism has identified a significant increase in depression, anxiety and specific personality disorders. In the context of the current article, many are loners who have very few if any social relationships, and some identify with or have been formally diagnosed with ASD.

 Nonetheless, only 3% of the lone actor terrorists were labeled ASD, compared to the population prevalence of 1.5%.

 An illustrative example is the Sandy Hook tragedy in Connecticut where a 20-year-old murdered 26 people by shooting, among whom were 20 children. At the age of 13 years the perpetrator was diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome (now recognized under the umbrella term ASD) and a year later also with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). He was described as socially aloof, awkward and emotionally disengaged even from family. He developed political interests and opinions that he argued with authority and arrogance. 

 Further Along, the authors write:

What may be more important than particular interests or rigidly held beliefs is the social exclusion and bullying that are both common among adolescents with ASD, and which can fuel resentment and hate toward their peers. 

 Students with ASD are often the victims of bullying, sometimes over a long period of time. This may result in feelings of anger toward others, particularly victimizers and their affiliates, even among those without ASD but who have engaged in mass violence. 

 The exact relationship between bullying and mass violence is unclear however: some evidence suggests that 87% of school shooters had been described as being victims of bulling whereas a more detailed examination of school shooters found no such evidence. On the one hand, therefore, extremism-mediated violence among those with ASD may not be so much about ASD per se but instead relate to how others treat them because of their vulnerabilities.

 Of course, other factors that have not been well-studied, such as poor empathy or mentalizing, may also mediate violence through their impact on mechanisms that inhibit violence. Research has also shown that a history of trauma can impact the same biological mechanisms, and individuals with ASD are at higher risk for anxiety disorders and (accompanying) difficulties. 

 The authors move on to a discussion of technology:

This is also a population where familiarity with computers and the internet is common and indeed frequently seen as a lifeline with great fluency with web-based resources). This fluency has both positive and negative effects). 

 For example, there is potential for anxiety reduction through information gathering, but, conversely, internet searching can become obsessive and the potential for internet addiction is high  One of the great risks is that lack of good social judgment and supportive peers (who can provide an important balance to disinformation) makes individuals with ASD more vulnerable as targets for misinformation.

 On the other hand, sometimes the lack of social sophistication, critical thinking, and poor judgment can act to seemingly or actually radicalize individuals with ASD. It is important that supporters and family members help provide good information on safe internet use and that government agencies be aware of these potential vulnerabilities.

 They then discussed the need for accurate diagnostic prognoses:

Usefully, experts who consider individual level risk have the opportunity to pull together these multiple threads into a rich, detailed understanding that surpasses the generic, descriptive actuarial risk. It is not enough to say that ASD is or is not relevant; reducingrisk in this simplistic way will for certain undermine the ability to understand the nature of risk and how best to manage that risk

 Bear in mind that none of the ASD diagnostic assessments were developed to be used in a forensic population, and may not be sensitive to differentiate between, for example, social impairments that are largely trauma related from those that may be indicative of ASD.

 One potential drawback of focusing on diagnosis is that in the search for mental health “explanations” the true complexity of human behavior may be missed.

 And Finally, they discuss some possible ramifications:

A related issue is the tendency to apportion “responsibility” for behavior to a particular diagnostic label, when in fact the role it plays maybe really quite small and peripheral. l

 The motivation for an individual to hold extremist beliefs and the risk of violence represents the interplay between a number of factors, both well-defined and those that are stochastic and unpredictable. 

 We have considered risk from a mental health perspective, and specifically in relation to ASD. People with ASD are certainly represented among those who are affiliated with extremist groups, and some have engaged in extremist-related violent acts. 

 Whether this is more frequent than those with other neurodevelopmental disorders, or those with other mental health problems, is unclear. We expect that the relationship is not strong, but at the same time, as articulated above, there are reasons to believe that the diagnosis will be relevant.

 Okay, that’s the article summary. 

 The takeaway for me, is that with most things having to do with human behavior, the circumstances that lead to radicalization and violence is a very individual path, care must be taken to avoid the application of labels.

 Yes, autism is a risk factor in this area, but to point to autism itself as a cause, is clearly a mistake.  But it also cannot be discounted as a non-factor, it can be a part of the tapestry of a person’s life that leads to these acts.

 The fact that these transformations take time is encouraging in that there are outward signs of problems.  However, to ignore them is unwise.