Autism: From "Bully" to Bullied
"A 13-year-old autistic boy has been punched, teased and had his condition mocked in online videos by his peers. But the parents of the accused children say they were justified in bullying the Iowa teen.
...“I would say three-fourths of this stuff he brings on himself and probably a fourth of it is bullying that shouldn’t be going on,” said Levi Weatherly, father of the teen accused of posting the video online.
...“He called my nephew a nasty name, and my nephew Cole cocked (sic) him in the mouth,” resident Jamie Harrison wrote to the station. “I’m proud of my nephew for doing that.”
- Iowa Parents Defend Bulldying of Autistic Teen
People with autism are known for being blunt, having trouble reading others' reactions (not realizing someone is upset), and having difficulty reading social rules (as discussed further down). This combination has the unfortunate tendency to lead things that people on the autism spectrum say to sound "mean," even if there was no malice intended. For example, someone on the spectrum might see two friends joking around with each other and calling each other bad names, and then inappropriately apply that by calling people bad names in the wrong context or with poor delivery, perhaps by saying it to someone who isn't a close friend or using the bad name without the signals of body language/tone to suggest they're joking.
Multiple incidents of 'mean' behavior then lead to the person with ASD being labeled a "bully." In our society, while we look down on bullies, retaliating against a perceived bully is not only acceptable, but encouraged. It is the ultimate form of irony, then, that the so-called "bully" actually ends up being hurt by true bullies, who act with full understanding of the pain they are inflicting. I think a journalist from Time said it best when she asked this question in her article on the subject, "Meanwhile, people without autism aren't supposed to be impaired in understanding others' pain, so what's our excuse?"
Isolating the victim. Gossip. The silent treatment. Talking about the victim like they're not there. Sabotaging friendships. Each of these I have witnessed happen to a "bully" on the autism spectrum. When I first saw this phenomenon, I was watching a documentary in which a girl with autism was accused of bullying. She was summarily kicked out of her summer camp and ostracized - but when asked if she was bullying hadn't the slightest idea of what she had been accused of. When I came to college, I had a friend in my dormitory something similar happened to. She made some comments, which unintentionally sounded mean, but in reality were just her own attempts to fit in with college humor, and was henceforth gossiped about, isolated, given the silent treatment, and - when her first roommate switched rooms and she got a new one - her new roommate was warned off of her before she'd even met her. Later, I saw the roots of something similar happen with another one of my friends, this time a guy. He asked a question and, thanks to his not having read the situation right, put another person on the spot, which made them angry, a situation which would have been prone to retaliation and bullying if we weren't all already good friends.
After having witnessed all this, you'd better believe that I tried everything in my power to make sure it didn't happen to my sister. I thought she was safe. And, yet, in her case poor reading of social cues was again interpreted as bullying and the "bullied" parties retaliated in kind with ostracization and gossip. Sensing a theme here? Me, too, and it's one I'm determined to put a halt to.
'That was so obviously mean, how could (s)he not get it?' you might ask me. People with autism won't just "get" something because it's obvious to people without autism. There's a reason autism is labeled a pervasive developmental disorder - it's not something that just goes away. That said, people with autism are no more or less likely to be a bully than you or I are. In reality, the proportion of people on the autism spectrum who are bullies is about the same as it is in the general population - that is to say, quite low - and some argue that the proportion is, in fact, even lower.
While the rate of bullies may be comparable to the general population, the rate of victims of bullying is not. Students on the autism spectrum are bullied in rates far higher than other students, reaching almost 50% of students in middle and high schools according to one study. Parents of autistic children claim the rates are even higher, and I am inclined to agree. Sarcasm, tone, body language, and other hints and cues you and I normally pick up on are all things that generally slip past a person on the autism spectrum. In short, in some cases the person with autism might not even realize they're being bullied, which would lead such incidents to be underreported.
Case in point? My sister. She used to walk home from high school with a group of neighborhood kids. Nervous, since my sister's often a victim of bullying, I asked her point-blank if those kids were her friends. She told me yes, they were definitely her friends, with this tone in her voice that indicated this was a really stupid question for me to ask (a tone that only teenage younger sisters can manage). The next week when I came home from school I found her crying and scared. The kids had thrown rocks at her and she'd run all the way home. Were they ever her friends? Probably not - barring something huge, you don't tend to go from friendship to rock throwing in the space of a week. But she couldn't read the signs.
Even though society encourages us to fight back against perceived bullies, it strongly discourages us from bullying those who are disabled. So why, then, are people on the autism spectrum so often bullied? A study found that people with high-functioning autism are bullied at a higher rate than those who are low-functioning, adding that this was likely because "while their social awkwardness was more obvious because they actually interacted more with mainstream peers, this made their actual disability less visible, likely making their condition harder for their peers to understand."* In short, if you don't realize someone's disabled and don't understand their disability, the societal pressures against bullying disabled people may not kick in.
But now you've read Autism Spectrum Explained and you understand what autism is. So what can you do to help? If you see bullying, stop it. Easier said than done, I know, but you don't have to fight it alone. In colleges, students with Disability Services, your Resident Life Coordinator (the RA's boss), professors, advisers are all on hand to help you stop bullying. In schools, teachers, guidance counselors, and administrators are all great resources. Simply report the bullying to any them, and they can handle the situation from there.
What I've done in addition in the past, which I thought was quite effective, was actually talking to the bullies themselves (not as the victim, but as a bystander). Yes, they're doing a bad thing, but (particularly if it's a more subtle form of bullying) odds are they're not bad people - they probably don't see what they're doing as bullying in any way, just as 'fighting fire with fire'. If you voice your concerns, they may have to look more closely at their own actions.
One word of caution - be careful not to 'out' anyone in this process. If your friend is not open with their autism diagnosis, there's a reason for that, and that's a decision that has to be respected. However, my sister added that if your friend is, in fact, not out about their diagnosis and is dealing with a great deal of bullying, they may wish to consider doing so. While an open diagnosis of autism carries a stigma, it also is in many ways a shield, and the same people who might be likely to bully someone who is socially awkward may be less likely to bully someone with a diagnosis.
Multiple incidents of 'mean' behavior then lead to the person with ASD being labeled a "bully." In our society, while we look down on bullies, retaliating against a perceived bully is not only acceptable, but encouraged. It is the ultimate form of irony, then, that the so-called "bully" actually ends up being hurt by true bullies, who act with full understanding of the pain they are inflicting. I think a journalist from Time said it best when she asked this question in her article on the subject, "Meanwhile, people without autism aren't supposed to be impaired in understanding others' pain, so what's our excuse?"
Isolating the victim. Gossip. The silent treatment. Talking about the victim like they're not there. Sabotaging friendships. Each of these I have witnessed happen to a "bully" on the autism spectrum. When I first saw this phenomenon, I was watching a documentary in which a girl with autism was accused of bullying. She was summarily kicked out of her summer camp and ostracized - but when asked if she was bullying hadn't the slightest idea of what she had been accused of. When I came to college, I had a friend in my dormitory something similar happened to. She made some comments, which unintentionally sounded mean, but in reality were just her own attempts to fit in with college humor, and was henceforth gossiped about, isolated, given the silent treatment, and - when her first roommate switched rooms and she got a new one - her new roommate was warned off of her before she'd even met her. Later, I saw the roots of something similar happen with another one of my friends, this time a guy. He asked a question and, thanks to his not having read the situation right, put another person on the spot, which made them angry, a situation which would have been prone to retaliation and bullying if we weren't all already good friends.
After having witnessed all this, you'd better believe that I tried everything in my power to make sure it didn't happen to my sister. I thought she was safe. And, yet, in her case poor reading of social cues was again interpreted as bullying and the "bullied" parties retaliated in kind with ostracization and gossip. Sensing a theme here? Me, too, and it's one I'm determined to put a halt to.
'That was so obviously mean, how could (s)he not get it?' you might ask me. People with autism won't just "get" something because it's obvious to people without autism. There's a reason autism is labeled a pervasive developmental disorder - it's not something that just goes away. That said, people with autism are no more or less likely to be a bully than you or I are. In reality, the proportion of people on the autism spectrum who are bullies is about the same as it is in the general population - that is to say, quite low - and some argue that the proportion is, in fact, even lower.
While the rate of bullies may be comparable to the general population, the rate of victims of bullying is not. Students on the autism spectrum are bullied in rates far higher than other students, reaching almost 50% of students in middle and high schools according to one study. Parents of autistic children claim the rates are even higher, and I am inclined to agree. Sarcasm, tone, body language, and other hints and cues you and I normally pick up on are all things that generally slip past a person on the autism spectrum. In short, in some cases the person with autism might not even realize they're being bullied, which would lead such incidents to be underreported.
Case in point? My sister. She used to walk home from high school with a group of neighborhood kids. Nervous, since my sister's often a victim of bullying, I asked her point-blank if those kids were her friends. She told me yes, they were definitely her friends, with this tone in her voice that indicated this was a really stupid question for me to ask (a tone that only teenage younger sisters can manage). The next week when I came home from school I found her crying and scared. The kids had thrown rocks at her and she'd run all the way home. Were they ever her friends? Probably not - barring something huge, you don't tend to go from friendship to rock throwing in the space of a week. But she couldn't read the signs.
Even though society encourages us to fight back against perceived bullies, it strongly discourages us from bullying those who are disabled. So why, then, are people on the autism spectrum so often bullied? A study found that people with high-functioning autism are bullied at a higher rate than those who are low-functioning, adding that this was likely because "while their social awkwardness was more obvious because they actually interacted more with mainstream peers, this made their actual disability less visible, likely making their condition harder for their peers to understand."* In short, if you don't realize someone's disabled and don't understand their disability, the societal pressures against bullying disabled people may not kick in.
But now you've read Autism Spectrum Explained and you understand what autism is. So what can you do to help? If you see bullying, stop it. Easier said than done, I know, but you don't have to fight it alone. In colleges, students with Disability Services, your Resident Life Coordinator (the RA's boss), professors, advisers are all on hand to help you stop bullying. In schools, teachers, guidance counselors, and administrators are all great resources. Simply report the bullying to any them, and they can handle the situation from there.
What I've done in addition in the past, which I thought was quite effective, was actually talking to the bullies themselves (not as the victim, but as a bystander). Yes, they're doing a bad thing, but (particularly if it's a more subtle form of bullying) odds are they're not bad people - they probably don't see what they're doing as bullying in any way, just as 'fighting fire with fire'. If you voice your concerns, they may have to look more closely at their own actions.
One word of caution - be careful not to 'out' anyone in this process. If your friend is not open with their autism diagnosis, there's a reason for that, and that's a decision that has to be respected. However, my sister added that if your friend is, in fact, not out about their diagnosis and is dealing with a great deal of bullying, they may wish to consider doing so. While an open diagnosis of autism carries a stigma, it also is in many ways a shield, and the same people who might be likely to bully someone who is socially awkward may be less likely to bully someone with a diagnosis.
Some of the information in this article came from TIME's article "Why autistic kids make easy targets for school bullies" by Maia Szalavitz. I highly recommend reading it if you want to learn more about autism and bullying.
