Alek Minassian was charged with 10 counts of murder and 13 counts of attempted murder, after last Friday?s van attacks. Since it emerged in two Toronto Star reports that Minassian may have autism spectrum disorder (ASD), social media has lit up with speculation around the possibility of a cause-and-effect relationship between this developmental disorder and acts of extreme violence.

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Today?s Parent launches first autism eBook for Canadian parentsSuch conversations fuel fear and misunderstanding, leaving the families of kids who have autism spectrum disorder feeling vulnerable and stigmatized.  Alexandra Samuel, the mother of a child on the spectrum, says: “The van attack was already heartbreaking for me as a Toronto native, but seeing the attacker identified as autistic made it triply so. First, it broke my heart because I live in fear of other people?s fear: I hate to see autism identified as a relevant factor in an episode of violence, because it implies that people should be afraid of boys like my son, or the men they grow into. That?s a completely erroneous picture of autism, which is far more likely to turn these boys into victims of other people?s cruelty than perpetrators of their own. 
But it also breaks my heart because the pi...