Abstract
Across schools, bullying under all of its forms (e.g., physical, verbal, relational, cyber) is a concerning phenomenon. Prevalence studies suggest that children with ASD are a particularly vulnerable population. Specifically, children with ASD are at a considerably higher risk of being bullied than their peers with other or no special educational needs. This chapter aims to examine in what way bullying occurs in ASD populations and what particular challenges individuals with ASD have to deal with. More specifically, the chapter describes and discusses key points in the existing literature on bullying and autism spectrum disorder, such as (1) types of bullying, (2) causes and determining factors, (3) risk and protective factors, (4) consequences of bullying, (5) prevention strategies and interventions where the transition to recommendations is made through thorough research specifically applied to this topic in order to provide theory and evidence-based practices for educators, teachers, school counselors, parents, and any other interested party.
TopBackground
About Bullying
School bullying is a cause for great concern and worry as it has encompassed the whole world (UNESCO, 2019) and its consequences are lingering even through adulthood (Pepler et al., 2008). Currently, bullying is considered to be a trigger for psychopathology (Keller et al., 2020).
Olweus (Pepler et al., 2008) proposes the following three criteria for defining bullying and distinguishing it from a random act of violence: 1. intentional aggressive behavior, 2. repeated over time and 3. the presence of a power imbalance. By focusing the lens on school bullying, the definition should include that it is a systematic power abuse done by peers. Thus, it would be both useful and important to differentiate bullying from isolated acts of aggression. It is recommended for parents, teachers or other practitioners to asses: if the aggression was unwarranted and limited to singular or recurring acts (i.e. a pattern of behavior); if those involved were of equal power or if there was a power imbalance; and whether the acts were intentional or random acts of malice (Perron, 2013).
Prevalence of School Bullying
While bullying has been studied for more than 40 years, it has been focused mainly on typically developing children and adolescents. Prevalence rates vary as numerous researchers used different points of measurement and diverse operationalizations of bullying, but available data paints a troubling picture – mean general prevalence of 35% for traditional bullying and 15% in the case of cyberbullying (Menesini & Salmivalli, 2017).
With the increasing number of children with special needs attending general education settings (Folostina & Iacob, 2020) and given their particular constellation of symptoms, more and more attention has been given to examining and understanding bullying occurrence. Available data indicates that persons with ASD are significantly more at risk for bullying (Zweers et al., 2017). Specifically, up to 34.4% are being bullied by other children, 23.5% bully other children and 10.2% are both bullies and victims (Cleave & Davis, 2006). Another review of prevalence rates points to an even higher bullying victimization rate for youth with ASD ranging from 46 to 96% (Sreckovic et al., 2014). It is very likely that the true extent of school bullying won’t ever be readily available given the numerous methodological issues (such as diverse methodologies, varied time frames, wide-ranging definitions, lack of a gold standard assessment questionnaire for bullying in individuals with ASD) (Campbell et al., 2017; Morton, 2021). Regardless of the exact percentage of persons with ASD suffering from bullying victimization, it is clear that children and adolescents with ASD are at a higher risk even after adjusting for comorbid psychopathology (Eroglu & Kilic, 2020).
In the case of children and adolescents with ASD acting as bullies, there’s a considerably smaller chance of them bullying others. While it’s true that they might manifest more aggressive behaviors compared to typically developing youth, it seems that this might happen because they have numerous comorbidities underlying ASD.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Peer Group Dynamic: Refers to the way in which colleagues/equals interact with each other.
Subjective Well-Being: Focuses on life satisfaction, positive affect and negative affect; subjective well-being must not be confused with psychological well-being which refers to the eudaimonic well-being where life is guided by a sense of purpose and meaning.
Externalizing Disorders: Involve a manifestation of problematic behavior outward oriented; can take the form of impulsive and disruptive conduct.
Internalizing Disorders: Problematic behaviors are self-oriented, include anxiety, depressive and somatic symptoms.
Psychological Distress: An umbrella term used to refer to a broad range of psychological symptoms, most frequently - depression, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder, insomnia, externalizing behaviors, but can cover many others depending of the specificity of the client.
School Bullying: Represents an unwanted, repeated, and aggressive behavior in which a power imbalance can be observed, it can be a form of emotional and/or physical abuse.