Prevalence and correlates of bullying perpetration and victimization among school-aged youth with intellectual disabilities: A systematic review.
Kids with ID face school bullying at high rates—screen everyone and fold anti-bullying skills into behavior plans.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Maïano et al. (2016) searched every study that counted how often kids with intellectual disability are bullied at school.
They pulled the numbers together to see how many are victims and how many bully others.
The review covers school-aged youth only.
What they found
About one in three students with ID are bullied.
About one in seven students with ID bully others.
Rates look similar to kids with other disabilities or typical kids, so ID alone does not raise or lower risk.
How this fits with other research
Maïano et al. (2016) also ran a same-year meta-analysis on kids with ASD. That paper found a higher victim rate—44%. The two papers share authors and methods, so the jump from 36% to 44% looks like a real split between ID and ASD, not a mistake.
Buse et al. (2014) and Zablotsky et al. (2014) showed that for kids with ASD, behavior problems and full-inclusion classrooms raise bullying risk. The ID review did not find clear risk factors, so these ASD studies extend the story by pointing to where to look.
Deniz et al. (2026) followed autistic youth for years and found chronic bullying hurts mental health. Because the 2016 ID review only took snapshots, the newer study extends the warning: high prevalence can turn into long-term harm if we do not act.
Why it matters
You already screen for self-injury and elopement. Add two quick bullying questions to your intake. If the child has both ID and ASD, treat the risk as even higher and write anti-bullying goals into the plan.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Recent literature reviews show that bullying perpetration and victimization are major public health concerns for typically developing (TD) youth. Nevertheless, the magnitude of this phenomenon among youth with intellectual disabilities (ID) remains unclear. Therefore, the purpose of this review is to provide a synthesis of the empirical studies examining the prevalence and correlates of bullying perpetration and victimization among youth with ID. A systematic literature search was performed and 11 studies met the inclusion criteria. The findings from these studies showed weighted mean prevalence rates of general bullying perpetration, bullying victimization and both of 15.1%, 36.3%, and 25.2%, respectively. Weighted mean prevalence rates of bullying perpetration and victimization differed according to the characteristics of the studies (e.g., assessment context, school setting, information source, type of measures, time frame). Additionally, high weighted mean prevalence rates of physical (33.3%), verbal (50.2%), relational (37.4%), and cyber (38.3%) victimization were found among youth with ID. When youth with ID were compared to youth with other disabilities or TD peers, no clear differences were found. Finally, the present review shows that correlates of bullying perpetration and victimization in this population remain understudied.
Research in developmental disabilities, 2016 · doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2015.11.015