Last Friday, an advocacy organization called Autism Speaks uploaded a video to YouTube that shares the story of 14-year-old David Shapiro Sharif. But in the face of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, in which gunman Adam Lanza was said to have suffered from Asperger’s syndrome, some believe that the video misrepresents the disorder.

According to AgeOfAutism.com blogger Anne Dachel:

“David’s message is hardly a cause for alarm. He evokes images of Rain Man. He has excellent verbal skills and it’s easy to imagine that kids have always been like this. I wonder how this would go over if we were shown a boy flapping his hands, unable to speak, wearing a helmet.”

The Executive Director for Autism Speaks, Matthew Asner, has responded by saying that the video is meant to reflect one child’s experience with autism—not everyone’s:

“In the speech, David says himself that there are some of us who are more high functioning than others. I wanted to produce something that could aid me in teaching people what autism is, and by no means am I giving them a master’s degree course in autism.”

A quick scan of the video’s comments on YouTube shows an overwhelmingly positive reaction to “My Name is David,” but Dachel maintains that the video should have showed some of the darker sides to autism.

Educational? Misleading? Let us know in the comments below.