Adam Lanza’s childhood was filled with “crippling” mental health issues ― some of which which his mother ignored, preferring to “accommodate and appease” the would-be Sandy Hook school shooter
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Connecticut’s Office of the Child Advocate outlined missed opportunities to treat Lanza’s mental health and behavioral issues in a new 114-page report. However, the authors of the detailed report did not say whether more effective treatment could have prevented
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in the years before the massacre, doctors recommended various treatment programs for the boy’s mental issues ― some of which, Nancy Lanza refused
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In 2007, Yale Child Studies Center prescribed antidepressant/anti-anxiety medication for Lanza.
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then 14 year old said he didn't want to go to appointments. So Nancy Lanza pulled away, discontinued the treatment and never scheduled follow-up visits.
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Lanza was in the ninth grade, Nancy Lanza withdrew him from classes over his mental health problems.
The school agreed to let him study independently and graduate early, when it could have provided better services for the trouble boy
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That move may have encouraged Lanza’s problems — not treated them.
"Records indicate that the school system cared about AL's success but also unwittingly enabled Mrs. Lanza's preference to accommodate and appease AL through the educational plan's lack of attention to social-emotional support, failure to provide related services, and agreement to AL's plan of independent study and early graduation at age 17,"
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After withdrawing from school, he spent months alone in his bedroom, where his depression worsened.
He developed a fascination with mass murder and suicide, and spent time talking to other massacre enthusiasts onlin
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He also started plotting his imfamous rampage.
“The attack on Sandy Hook Elementary appears to have been a purposefully thought-out and planned attack — AL did not just ‘snap,’
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The squandered chances to help the boy started early.
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he was just 2 years old, his parents took him to New Hampshire doctors because he showed communication and sensory problems and socialization delay.
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started getting help ― but the treatment focused on his troubles forming words, and not his inability to communicate with others.
His problems started getting worse in the fourth grade
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That’s when he became preoccupied by violence. He started producing “graphic writings that appeared to have been largely unaddressed by schools and possibly by parents,”
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He struggled off and on for the rest of his life.
He made enough progress in the 10th grade to return to class, but withdrew again later that year.
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throughout it all, Lanza’s parents ― and his school ― classified him as a gifted student.
“In actuality, psychological testing performed by the school district in high school indicated AL’s cognitive abilities were average,
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While the lengthy report discusses Lanza’s problems, treatment and lack thereof, it does directly relate his troubled past to his crimes.
“There is no way to adequately explain why AL was obsessed with mass shootings and how or why he came to act on this obsession. In the end, only he, and he alone, bears responsibility for this monstrous act,”
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