At the end of last year, two things happened in Beijing. First of all, Xiao Fang, an autistic child in the second grade of primary school, was forced to drop out of school because of behavior problems. The second thing is that the fourth-grade children were bullied at school and dropped out of school to see a psychologist. These two events, especially the latter, are said to have many behind-the-scenes backgrounds, and there are many reversal and anti-reversal plots.

Of course, plot and gossip are beyond our discussion, but both seem to involve a campus bullying incident. Autistic children in grade two "bully" their peers, while non-autistic children in grade four, regardless of their backgrounds, are obviously bullying. School bullying is a phenomenon that cannot be ignored, and it is also a social problem, which should be paid enough attention to.

Autistic children are serious victims of bullying.

As early as 1980s, it was observed that three of his students committed suicide after being bullied. Professor Dan Olweus, a pioneer of school bullying studies and a Swedish Norwegian scholar, defined bullying as "an aggressive or intentional act of hurting others. Due to the imbalance of power, this behavior continues to happen repeatedly. " He further pointed out that victims are often passive and will not take the initiative to cause bullying, which is a kind of abuse.

Nowadays, school bullying is not only a phenomenon that cannot be ignored, but also a social problem. There is evidence that bullying has a negative impact on victims, bullies and even bystanders, causing psychological problems such as depression and anxiety, and even committing suicide or taking some extreme attacks.

School bullying and autistic students have a particularly serious problem. The American Autism Interactive Network (IAN) released the research results of Dr. Connie Anderson on 20 14. Since 20 1 1, 67 autistic children aged 6- 15 have been investigated in China. The results show that there are as many as 63% autistic children. In addition, many families also report that most peers are clearly aware of the weaknesses of autistic children and often deliberately induce them to become crazy or aggressive.

▲63% of autistic children have been bullied.

▲ Autistic children are more vulnerable to bullying than non-autistic compatriots.

In America, there is an autistic child whose parents have made great efforts to intervene. Although there is still a slight lack of learning, I can take care of myself and go to school by car. But in junior high school, he was dismissed from school because his peers always induced him to have various behaviors, and even induced his children to make some indecent moves towards female classmates. The school is indifferent to this bullying and induced behavior, and the children are forced to drop out of school. ...

Bullying of autistic children takes many forms. In Ian's survey, 73% of parents reported that autistic children were "ridiculed or mocked", 565,438+0% reported that autistic children were "ignored or isolated by their peers", 47% reported that autistic children were "given insulting nicknames" and nearly 30% reported that autistic children were "pushed and kicked".

▲ Grade distribution of autistic children being bullied

From primary school to high school, autistic children of all grades are bullied, especially in grades 5 and 8 (equivalent to grades 6 and 3 in primary schools in China). The children in these two grades are the oldest in their respective schools, so the incidence of bullying is close to 50%.

▲ Children with high-functioning autism are more likely to be bullied.

In addition, we can see that all children with various symptoms are vulnerable to bullying, especially children with autism spectrum disorder, especially children with high-functioning autism. For example, Asperger is the most vulnerable to bullying. Although there are many reasons, the phenomenon that children in Asperger are bullied is very obvious, "said Hong Lei of Tianjin Sheng 'an Hospital.

Generally speaking, Asperger's children have better IQ and can keep up with their peers. Integrated education allows them to attend classes and play with their peers. However, they often have social barriers and lack expression skills, so they are the best targets for bullying. In Rebecca heinrichs's book The Perfect Bullying Object: Asperger's Syndrome and Bullying-A Practical Manual for Social World, published in 2003, she pointed out that 94% of patients with Asperger's disease have been bullied to varying degrees. This figure is still very shocking.

Do autistic children bully others?

Although autistic children are the targets of school bullying, we also notice that autistic children themselves often bully their peers. Xiao Fang, a sophomore in Beijing, is such an example. It is reported that she attacked her peers. Ian's report also shows that about 10-20% of autistic children will "bully" their peers.

So these bullying behaviors of autistic children are also school bullying? According to Professor Dan Olweus's definition of bullying, we can know: firstly, bullying is an act of intentionally hurting people; Secondly, the strength of the bully and the bullied is unbalanced; Thirdly, bullying is persistent, and the victims of bullying are passive and will not take the initiative to cause bullying.

First, does the bullying behavior of autistic children intentionally hurt others? The answer is of course not.

If autistic children also have bullying behavior, then considering their social understanding barriers, their bullying motives are different from those of their peers. Their aggressive behavior is often due to the obstacles of language communication, which leads to inappropriate behavior. It is more what we call problem behavior than intentional injury. So it can't be equated with bullying by peers.

In the research report published by Ian, some parents commented on the bullying of their autistic children like this:

"My son didn't realize that he was bullying his companion. He took his partner's ball just to get his partner's attention. He hit his partner in the face because he wanted to tell his partner not to bother himself. "

"He has his own way of doing things and hopes others will do the same. He doesn't understand his way of doing things or breaking the rules is a bullying behavior. "

"Our children often want anything at any time, and if he wants it, he has to get it right away. He may take away his companions' toys or scream, but what they do is definitely unintentional bullying. He never deliberately bullies people. "

It can be seen from the comments of these parents that the "bullying behavior" of some autistic children is not really bullying.

Second, is there an imbalance between autistic children and their behavior objects? The answer is of course not.

In fact, autistic children are often weak, bullied and laughed at. Needless to say. I once knew a very old autistic child. He once hurt his caregiver and sent him to the emergency room of the hospital. And his bullying, no matter who the object is, will not bully any child because the child is weak. This is a problem behavior of autistic children, not bullying behavior. Later, with the intervention of behavioral management experts, the child has been greatly improved and no longer hurts others.

Third, is the bullying behavior of autistic children persistent? The answer is possible.

I remember when our son was young, he played with a child with Asperger's syndrome. The child always thought that my son was playing wrong, kept talking and talking, and finally his son was said to be crying. However, this persistence is different from what we call school bullying.

Autistic children generally lack mental ability and cannot understand others' thoughts according to their facial expressions and body movements. Unfortunately, they are also very, very honest, and sometimes this honesty is understood as bullying. For example, they will say that you are too fat, or that I don't like you and don't want you to sit next to me, and so on. These excessive honesty will often be understood as bullying on campus.

Fourth, the bullying target of autistic children is passive, won't they take the initiative to trigger bullying? The answer is often no.

On the contrary, many bullying behaviors of autistic children are caused by being victims or others. For example, a child who was forced to drop out of school mentioned earlier was "bullying" other students because of malicious inducement from his peers. In the report released by IAN, more than 85% of most autistic children are bullied at the same time. Many of these bullying behaviors can induce violent reactions of autistic children and are misunderstood as bullying behaviors of autistic children.

Therefore, it is not to whitewash the phenomenon that autistic children are "bullied". But it should be said that the bullying behavior of autistic children is essentially different from that of their peers. One is "unintentional evil" and the other is "intentional evil".

For autistic children who have no intention of doing evil, besides everyone's understanding and acceptance, behavior intervention and behavior management should be the key.