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| Fear often leads to exclusion and derision, experts say. |
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- Study finds 46% of autistic children in middle, high school are victimized
- People with autism have trouble recognizing social cues, reporting bullying
- Highest functioning children in the study were at greatest risk
In the study, about 46%
of autistic children in middle and high school told their parents they
were victimized at school within the previous year, compared with just
over 10% of children in the general population.
Calling it a "profound public health problem," lead author Paul Sterzing of Washington University in St. Louis told the New York Times that the "rate of bullying and victimization among these adolescents is alarmingly high."
Many people with autism
have trouble recognizing social cues, which makes them awkward around
others. They also often engage in repetitive behaviors and tend to be
hypersensitive to environmental stimuli, all of which makes kids with
the disorder ripe targets for bullies who home in on difference and
enjoy aggravating their victims.
Voices of the disabled
Older fathers may be linked to autism
About a third of autism
cases are severely disabling — those affected may suffer from low IQ and
be unable to talk — but most autistic people have average or high
intelligence and many can function well, if their social and sensory
issues are appropriately addressed.
That may help explain
why the highest functioning children in the current study were at
greatest risk of being bullied. While their social awkwardness was more
obvious because they actually interacted more with mainstream peers,
this made their actual disability less visible, likely making their
condition harder for their peers to understand.
Children with autism who
could speak well, for example, were three times more likely to be
bullied than those whose conversational ability was limited or absent.
Further, those who were
mainly educated in mainstream classrooms were almost three times more
likely to be bullied than those who spent most of their time in special
education.
The research, published in the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine, involved survey data from 920 parents of autistic children, who were asked about their children's experience of bullying.
About 15% of autistic
children were reported to be bullies themselves — roughly the same rate
as in the general teen population — and 9% were both bullies and
victims. Bullying, which can take the form of teasing, exclusion,
humiliation or physical assault, can lead to depression and other mental
health problems, along with poor grades and even physical illness in
victims because of the severe stress it causes.
Parents of autistic
children think that the true rates of victimization are far higher than
what the study found, and that the rates of perpetrating bullying are
lower, precisely because autism disorders are characterized by an
inability to read subtle social cues and by difficulty with
communication.
In order to report being
bullied, you need to understand when you're being targeted, for
example; in contrast, you also need to understand and effectively deploy
harassing social information in order to be a bully — things that
autistic children generally cannot do.
"The only thing I can
figure out is that maybe the parents are misinterpreting their
children's clumsy attempts [to socialize]," says Eileen Riley-Hall, a
high-school teacher with an autistic daughter and author of "Parenting
Girls on the Autism Spectrum: Overcoming the Challenges and Celebrating
the Gifts," regarding the rate of bullies among autistic kids in the new
study.
"I think of bullying as
systematic manipulation. But [autistic children] are so candid, they're
typically not capable of that kind of forethought and malice."
Impaired language skills
and inability to read social cues also mean that many autistic children
are bullied without ever realizing it or being able to report it.
Riley-Hall recalled an
incident involving her daughter in elementary school. "Little boys were
getting her to say dirty words and laughing at her. She thought this was
a good thing and that they were being friendly, but they were really
making fun of her," she says, describing how another girl, who knew it
was wrong, told the teacher. But until the classmate reported it,
Riley-Hall had no idea that her daughter was being bullied.
With recent national
focus on the toll of school bullying, including bullying-related
suicide, many school districts are updating their anti-bullying policies
and states are giving the issue renewed legislative attention.
Research finds that the
best anti-bullying programs are comprehensive, involving the entire
school and not just individual students. Programs that work well tend to
encourage a warm school environment in which diversity is celebrated;
they also rely on adults at the school, from the principal to the lunch
ladies, to set a tone that clearly indicates that bullying isn't
acceptable.
Studies find that
students in schools that create such a welcoming atmosphere not only
perform better academically, but also have lower rates of behavior
problems like alcohol and drug use.
But despite efforts to
encourage inclusion, acceptance of students with disabilities remains
low overall. "There's still a sense that they are not as fully human as
other people," says Riley-Hall.
Another factor that
often leads to exclusion and derision is fear. "We have many generations
who have had no personal experience with people with special needs, and
they fear them," Riley-Hall notes. "They pass that ignorance on to
their children."
As the study's authors
conclude: "Inclusive classrooms need to increase the social integration
of adolescents [with autism] into protective peer groups while also
enhancing the empathy and social skills of typically developing students
towards their peers with [autism] and other developmental
disabilities."
Indeed, although
autistic people are often claimed to lack empathy, their problems
usually relate to an inability to understand the minds of others— not an
actual lack of care when they know someone is suffering.
Meanwhile, people without autism aren't supposed to be impaired in understanding others' pain, so what's our excuse?
This story was originally published on TIME.com
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