RISK and PROTECTIVE FACTORS for Bullying and Victimisation AMONG STUDENTS with AUTISM Spectrum DISORDERS

Background:  Students with ASD are more likely to be victims of bullying than those with other or no special educational needs.  However, research on actual prevalence of victimisation in this group has so far been equivocal.  Furthermore, there has been very little research that has examined the various factors associated with the extent of exposure to bullying in ASD.  Developing knowledge and understanding of such issues is a crucial step towards designing effective interventions.

Objectives:  To determine the prevalence of bullying among students with ASD, and identify risk and protective factors associated with the extent of exposure to bullying in ASD

Methods:  Teachers (N=725) and parents (N=121) completed surveys on the nature, frequency and extent of bullying experienced by students with ASD.  Background data was collected on each student including age, sex, level of SEN support provided in school, educational placement, mode of transportation to school, behaviour difficulties, positive relationships, and parental engagement and confidence.  These were regressed onto the bullying variables to determine their contribution to the variance in a forced entry model.

Results:  Parents reported significantly higher prevalence of bullying than teachers.  The teacher and parent regression models predicted 41% and 39% (respectively) of the variance in bullying experienced by students with ASD.  Explanatory variables that contributed significantly to the variance in bullying included, in order of magnitude, behaviour difficulties (greater difficulties being associated with more bullying), educational placement (with higher rates of bullying among students attending mainstream schools), age (with a peak in bullying reported for students in early adolescence), positive relationships (with better relationships with teachers and peers being associated with reductions in bullying), mode of transport to school (with higher rates of bullying among students using public transport), level of support provided in school (with lower rates of bullying among students in receipt of significant additional support), and parental engagement and confidence (with higher engagement being inversely associated with bullying).

Conclusions: Students with ASD are more likely than those with other or no special educational needs to be bullied in school.  However, the findings of the current study suggest that the extent of bullying they experience varies as a function of a number of risk and protective factors.  These factors need to be taken into account when developing provision in order to prevent bullying among such students in the future.