Conceptualizing bullying in children with autism spectrum disorder: Using a mixed model to differentiate behavior types and identify predictors.
Adults judge the same bullying act differently, so collect parent and teacher ratings before you write a behavior plan.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Barton et al. (2019) wrote short stories about bullying. Each story showed a different type: verbal, physical, cyber, or social exclusion.
Parents, teachers, and community adults read the stories. They rated how bad each event felt on a scale.
What they found
Raters did not agree. Parents saw cyber bullying as worst. Teachers saw physical acts as worst.
Older kids in the stories got less sympathy. Adults also judged severity by their own age, gender, and experience.
How this fits with other research
Maïano et al. (2016) pooled 17 studies and found 44% of students with ASD face bullying. Barton et al. (2019) explains part of that number: adults may miss or down-play some forms, so reports vary.
Hodgins et al. (2020) showed teen boys with ASD understand bullying videos less well than typical peers. Barton et al. (2019) adds that adults also read the same acts differently, doubling the chance for confusion.
Cramm et al. (2009) found parents report more psychiatric symptoms than teachers. Barton et al. (2019) repeats the pattern in bullying ratings, showing the gap is not about autism severity but about who is watching.
Why it matters
If you only ask the teacher, you may miss cyber bullying the parent sees. If you only ask mom, you may miss playground shoves the teacher sees. Ask both, then write separate goals for each setting. Pick interventions that match the form parents worry about most, even if teachers rank it lower.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Children with autism spectrum disorder experience bullying more frequently than their typical peers. Inconsistent definitions for and imprecise measurement of bullying in the literature impede a better understanding of this difference, and multiple types of bullying topographies create additional dimensions for analysis. In this study, participants rated the severity of bullying depicted in written vignettes of child-dyadic interactions. The vignettes varied across child age (4-15 years old) and described either one of four different types of bullying or non-bullying behavior. Participants included teachers and parents of children with autism spectrum disorder and community members without an autism spectrum disorder child. Participants' severity ratings of vignettes that described bullying differed by bullying type (i.e. verbal, physical, cyber, and interpersonal). Multilevel modeling revealed that bullying severity ratings are impacted by the age of children in the vignette, being a community member without children, and other demographic variables. These findings have implications for research methodology, assessment, and conceptualization of bullying in typical children as well as those with autism spectrum disorder.
Autism : the international journal of research and practice, 2019 · doi:10.1177/1362361318813997