Role of wealth, race also addressed in report on Newtown shooter

FILE - In this Dec. 4, 2013 file photo, a school bus drives past a sign reading Welcome to Sandy Hook, in Newtown, Conn., where 26 people were killed by a gunman inside Sandy Hook Elementary School. A new play about the massacre at the Sandy Hook Elementary School will have a benefit reading in December in New York City to commemorate the second anniversary of the tragedy. Eric Ulloaís ì26 Pebbles,î which was adapted from transcripts of interviews with people touched by the shootings, will have a staged reading Dec. 15 at the Culture Projectís The Lynn Redgrave Theater. The director will be Igor Goldin and prices range from $50-$150. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill, File) less FILE - In this Dec. 4, 2013 file photo, a school bus drives past a sign reading Welcome to Sandy Hook, in Newtown, Conn., where 26 people were killed by a gunman inside Sandy Hook Elementary School. A new play ... more Photo: AP Photo: AP Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Role of wealth, race also addressed in report on Newtown shooter 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

HARTFORD >> A new report asks whether the race and affluence of Adam Lanza’s family influenced decisions about how to care for his mental health problems in the years before he committed the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre.

Among the findings in the report, which was released Friday by the state office of Child Advocate, is that Lanza’s parents and educators contributed to his social isolation by accommodating — and not confronting — his difficulties engaging with the world.

“Is the community more reluctant to intervene and more likely to provide deference to the parental judgment and decision-making of white, affluent parents than those caregivers who are poor or minority?” the report asks. “Would (Adam Lanza’s) caregivers’ reluctance to maintain him in school or a treatment program have gone under the radar if he were a child of color?”

Lanza’s father is a financial services executive. The son and his mother lived in an exclusive neighborhood in the wealthy bedroom community, 70 miles north of Manhattan.

Research has found that upper-middle-class parents are far more likely to be resistant, defensive and even litigious when presented with treatment options suggested by school service providers, said Suniya Luthar, a professor of Psychology at Arizona State University, who has written extensively on the topic of affluence and mental health.

Deferring to those parents can have grave consequences, allowing nascent problems to escalate to serious and sometimes dangerous levels, she said.

“Even though some of these parents can be very intimidating, schools need to hang tough,” she said. “If there is a psychologist, a teacher or a social worker who believes this child is headed for deep trouble, they need to be firm in advocating for the child”

The report concluded that Lanza’s autism spectrum disorder and other psychiatric problems did not cause or lead directly to the massacre.

But it found that his “severe and deteriorating internalized mental health problems” when combined with a preoccupation with violence, and access to deadly weapons, “proved a recipe for mass murder.”