User talk:Davecullen

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Welcome!

Hello, Davecullen, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question and then place {{helpme}} after the question on your talk page. Again, welcome!  --BigDT (416) 23:15, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I've actually contributed for several years, but it's been at least a year since I posted anything. (The four tildas thing is new to me. I don't know that I ever signed anything before.) Wikipedia sure has gotten dramatically better over the years. I'm very glad to see all the citations now.

Davecullen 18:18, 24 April 2007 (UTC)Dave Cullen

Welcome to Wikipedia! Are you the author of the Slate article? No problem posting that reference, but just be sure to steer clear of getting your name on Wikipedia:Wikipedians with articles (i.e., never edit an article about yourself).

Your article on Cho was excellent, by the way, and full of insights. Thank you for your work. —Sandover 23:25, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I am the author. Thanks, and I'll be careful. I've tried to be judicious over the past several years. I have mainly contributed to the Columbine page over the years, which has improved greatly over that time, but still needs a lot of work. (I think most of it was created during the early years of wikipedia, when citations were not the rule.) The myths on that page used to drive me nuts, but most of them have been cleared out. I added a slew of comments to the discussion page tonight, but I was hesitant to cut out statements already in the text. (Is this where I should be replying to this? Is there a PM fuction?)

Davecullen 07:06, 24 April 2007 (UTC) Dave Cullen 23 April 2007

In your April 27, 2007 New York Times article, "Talk to the Chos," you wrote:
We know Mr. Cho demonstrated symptoms consistent with autism and Asperger’s syndrome, but these can also be signs of schizophrenia.
Cho's great aunt may have used the word japyejeung (autism), but when speaking about what she remembers of Cho, she is not describing symptoms consistent with autism and Asperger's. Neither Cho's "well-behaved" demeanor as a young child, nor his ability to obey commands and cues, is consistent with autism. Nor does a hypothetical "Asperger's" diagnosis seem to fit with the description of Cho as reclusive, shy, and non-verbal.
It now seems as if Cho's great aunt in Korea only heard the recently-popularized Korean word japyejeung ('self-closed syndrome') in a recent New Year's call. But there was apparently no official 'autism' diagnosis, and from what we know of Cho, autism just doesn't fit; it is far more likely Cho was affected by selective mutism, since his childhood and early adolescent behaviors fit the textbook case. While your editorial about the need for the Cho family to come clean with what they knew is well-merited, you do a disservice to repeat the notion that Cho was autistic. At this point, if not debunked, the notion is at least highly suspect —Sandover 04:22, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

I interviewed several leading psychologists/psychiatrists who saw quite a bit in Cho that appeared consistent with someone on the autism or Asperger's spectrum. I was careful about the wording and did not say he was diagnosed, or that he had the condition, merely that he had shown symptoms consistent with those. In fact, I was downplaying the possibility--suggesting that even though apparent symptoms were visible, they could be other things. The discussion of these diagnoses was widely reported, and there was evidence consistent with them--so I really don't think acknowledging that situation in order to downplay it was a problem. Dave Cullen 04:21, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Widely mis-reported as autism, we now know... Though it is to Wikipedia's credit that the wholly unchallenged notion that Cho was autistic lasted a mere 36 hours or so in his biography, and that this community was amenable to reasonable and informed argument on the subject. It is to NBC News' credit that they broadcast what they did (they didn't get much praise for that decision), since Cho's speech patterns were to me so clearly out of key with autistic spectrum demeanor and speech. Cho was not autistic, but without the NBC broadcast, I might not have been so firm about asserting it.
The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that Cho was diagnosed with "selective mutism" by his sophomore year in high school, and received special education accommodations including a waiver on participation in class discussion. As will be much discussed, he received 50 minutes a month of speech and language therapy to address his problem. Soon enough, people will be finding precedents for selective mutism slipping into psychosis, as has been noted in the literature. My heart is with the families of children, in particular, with the selective mutism diagnosis, who don't deserve the burden of Cho... He's an exceptional case, of course, and a tragic one.
I'm not at all surprised about the selective mutism diagnosis. It was there in the telling detail of Cho's single junior high school friend (with whom he could, in fact, talk), and in so many other confirmations spelled out in the grandaunt's account of the two times she met him, the second time when he was 8. As I said above, she was not describing autism, she was describing selective mutism. The problem wasn't that Cho couldn't talk, it was that he wouldn't talk, at least as the grandaunt saw the situation; the family knew he had the ability to speak, of course, but felt he was being reluctant to do so (though in fact it's a different anxiety mechanism in play, not a willful refusal).
Frankly, if "leading pyschologists/psychiatrists" signed off on Cho being autistic rather than a selective mute, they really should turn in their badges... Or were you talking to forensic psychiatrists, the fancy folk who talk about serial killers? I'm not surprised they are out of the loop, because they have so rarely done fieldwork or met real children. They might not know at all what I am talking about. Sandover 22:42, 21 August 2007 (UTC)