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The authors of the above article were careful, both in the title of their article, and in the main body text, to make it clear to readers that the involvement of persons with autism in terrorism is a rare occurrence. Our analysis of the case studies in the article suggests that concurrence of autism per se and terrorism may actually be even less than is implied by the authors. We felt compelled to write to you in view of the potential for autism to be wrongly associated with terrorism in the minds of the public despite attempts to ensure objectivity.
In a journal with a focus on intellectual disability[1] (ID), the authors should make it clear that autism per se is not an ID. Where there is co-morbid ID in addition to autism, the situation is more complex and conclusions cannot be drawn so easily about autism (or ID).
We believe that the following points support our view that the concurrence of autism and terrorism is likely to be significantly less than may be implied by Faccini and Allely:
Despite the mentions of “rare instances/occurrences” in the title and main body text, the fact that there are aspects of autism (e.g. compliance with rules) that mitigate against involvement in criminal activity as well as aspects (e.g. immaturity/naivety) that could lead to such involvement, requires a balanced investigation to avoid unintentional bias implying a connection between autism and terrorism in the absence of evidence.
The authors cite O’Neill and Simpson (2015a, b) who wrote that: “Asperger’s or autism, serious learning difficulties and low self-esteem, among other conditions” have been identified “as a potential part of the path to radicalization specifically the conditions which extremists are increasingly exploiting in individuals they target for recruiting and training” (our italics) – this statement by O’Neill and Simpson is misleading as it does not make it clear that there are paths to radicalization without AS or autism i.e. they should have written “as a potential part of a path to radicalization”. We note that Allely agrees with Al-Attar (2016a, b) that “there is no empirical evidence to show that people on the autism spectrum are at increased risk of engaging in terrorist offenses or that autism is over-represented in terrorist offenders”....