Editing Adam Lanza (section)

==Biography==
===Childhood===
[[File:Lanza 2920473b.jpg|thumb|186x186px|Adam and his father.|left|link=Special:FilePath/Lanza_2920473b.jpg]]

Adam Lanza was born on April 22, 1992 of Italian descent. He didn’t speak until he was three years old, and always understood many more words than he could muster. He showed so much hypersensitivity to physical touch that tags had to be removed from his clothing.

[[File:Lanzax.jpg|thumb|299x299px|Adam's 6th grade yearbook photo |link=Special:FilePath/Lanzax.jpg]]
In preschool and at Sandy Hook, where he was a student until the beginning of sixth grade, he sometimes smelled things that weren’t there and washed his hands excessively. Due to this, his doctor diagnosed him with Sensory Processing Disorder.<ref>[https://abcnews.go.com/Health/newtown-shooter-adam-lanza-sensory-processing-disorder-controversial/story?id=18532645 Newtown Shooter Lanza Had Sensory Processing Disorder], ''ABC News''</ref>

Adam underwent speech therapy and occupational therapy in kindergarten as well as first grade. Throughout his schooling years, Adam had an Individualized Educational Plan (IEP)  to accommodate his special needs. Still, photos show him looking enthusiastic and cheerful. According to Adam's father, Peter, Adam loved Sandy Hook Elementary, stating ''"As he was growing older, how much he had liked being a little kid."''. Adam’s brother, Ryan, four years older and now a tax accountant in New York, used to joke about how close Peter and Adam were, as they’d spend hours playing with Legos in the basement and making up stories for the towns they built. Adam even created his own board games. ''"Always thinking differently"'', Peter said, "''Just a normal little weird kid".''

===Teenage years===
[[File:Adaminhisyears.jpg|thumb|241x241px|Adam in his teenage years.|link=Special:FilePath/Adaminhisyears.jpg]]
When Adam began middle school at age 11, Peter and Nancy's worries increased. The structure of the school day changed instead of sitting in one classroom, he had to move from room to room, to which Adam found the disruption punishing.

Sensory overload affected his ability to concentrate; his mother xeroxed his textbooks in black and white because he found color graphics unbearable. He gave up playing the saxophone, stopped climbing trees, avoided eye contact, and developed a stiff, lumbering gait.

He said that he hated birthdays and holidays, something which he had previously loved; special occasions unsettled his increasingly sclerotic orderliness. He had episodes, panic attacks that necessitated his mother's coming to school. The state attorney’s report says that on such occasions, Adam was more likely to be victimized than to act in violence against another. 

His anxiety increased to the extent that he didn't attend school for almost the entirety of 8th grade.<ref>[https://www.courant.com/hc-adam-lanzas-medical-records-reveal-growing-anxiety-20141121-story.html Adam Lanza's Medical Records Reveal Growing Anxiety], ''Hartford Courant''</ref> He nevertheless began attending Newtown High School the next year, eager to be a 'normal' student. This required his mother to make arrangements to make it seem as though Adam was being treated as a regular student by his teachers, when in reality he still had an Individualized Education Program in place that he was unaware of. In his high school years, Adam was an active member of the Tech Club, and even threw a party for the club members at his home. The club supervisor, Richard Novia, was aware of Adam's condition, and made sure the other club members treated him well. 

However, Adam began facing problems once again in high school. Soon, he stopped attending Newtown High School and instead attended Western Connecticut State University to obtain credits towards his high school diploma. This arrangement helped him complete high school a year early. 

Throughout his teenage years, Adam was interested in computers. Some of his former acquaintances claimed that he could take apart and reassemble a computer. His mother even told friends that her son had managed to hack into a government website, prompting the FBI to show up at their house. Whether this actually happened, however, is questionable. 

After high school, Adam was resolved to join the military. His mother, however, convinced him not to enlist, explaining that his condition made a military profession unsuitable for him. She instead wished that Adam would attend college. Around this time, Adam grew increasingly reclusive. He cut off all contact with his father, and spoke to his mother, who lived in the same house as he did, via email. He left the house only to go to the movie theater in Danbury and play Dance Dance Revolution.

Adam became very critical of society in his isolation. He expressed views to this effect online, writing on forums and in YouTube comments that he believed mental illness to be a result of society depriving humans of their natural instincts. In fact, Adam was so against modern psychiatry that he once compared therapists to [[Rape|rapists]] (pointing out that the word 'rapist' is in the word 'therapist'). Adam was against what he called the 'indoctrinating'  influences of modern society and culture, and expressed strong anti-religion views in some of his YouTube comments.<ref>[https://www.cbsnews.com/news/sandy-hook-newtown-connecticut-shooter-adam-lanza-tortured-mind-documents-shed-light/ Documents shed light on Sandy Hook shooter Adam Lanza's tortured mind], ''CBS News''</ref><ref>[https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/adam-lanza-20-deeply-disturbed-kid-article-1.1220752 Sandy Hook mass murderer Adam Lanza, 20, 'deeply disturbed kid'], ''New York Daily News''</ref>

On December 11, 2011, almost a year before the shooting, Adam called in to Anarchy Radio using the name "Greg" and promoted the story of Travis the chimpanzee, a pet chimpanzee who attacked a 55 year old woman named Charla Nash, who was a friend of Travis's owner.<ref>[https://www.businessinsider.com/adam-lanza-called-a-radio-show-before-his-shooting-2014-1 Newtown Shooter Raised A Giant Red Flag On A Radio Show 1 Year Before The Tragedy], ''Business Insider''</ref>