Category Archives: Human Rights

Removal from School for Disciplinary Reasons: The Law

Education, Human Rights, School Discipl, School Discipline, ,

My apologies for all the legal stuff that follows.  Understanding how suspension and expulsion can legally be imposed on autistic children requires understanding the complicated provisions concerning student discipline laid out in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), as amended in 1997 and 2004.

In the United States, under the current, amended form of IDEA, not only are children with autism and other disabilities entitled to FAPE (a free, appropriate, public education, in the least restrictive environment possible), but school actions that might deny them FAPE by removing them from the classroom are subject to legal limitations.[1]  The school must be very careful about removing a child temporarily (suspension) or permanently (expulsion), if the child’s behavior is a “manifestation” of her or his disability—that is, the behavior is caused either by the disability itself, or by the school’s failure to carry out the child’s IEP plan.  For example, if a child gets into trouble for not doing what the teacher says, and if it turns out that the child has an auditory processing disorder which makes it difficult or impossible to hear what the teacher is saying, and if the accommodations for auditory processing disorder written into her or his IEP have not been fully implemented, then the school cannot suspend or expel the child.

The school also cannot use removals from the classroom in ways that turns them into an unofficial “change of placement” to a more restrictive environment.[2]  If the school does want a change of placement, it is supposed to follow a formal review process, showing that the school has done all that it can to offer the student accommodations and teach him or her “better” behaviors, without success.  But because these actions present a major obstacle to their child receiving FAPE, parents who know their child’s rights can and do appeal school decisions through the state education system and possibly in court.

Schools use both in-school suspensions, in which a child is removed from the classroom but remains in the building, and out-of-school suspensions, in which a child is normally sent home, to punish unwanted behaviors.  According to federal regulations, a disabled child cannot be suspended in either setting for more than ten consecutive school days in response to a particular incident.  If the school wants to suspend a child for a longer period of time, it must provide appropriate educational and additional IEP services, at the school or at home, so that the child can continue to receive an education.  The school must also hold a “manifestation determination review” to decide whether the child’s unwanted behavior or behaviors is a “manifestation” of their disability. If they conclude that it is, additional efforts must be made to modify the child’s behavior.  The school is required to review his or her Individualized Education Program (IEP) to ensure that it is being fully implemented, possibly conduct a first or a new Functional Behavior Analysis (FBA) to determine why the child is “misbehaving” in the first place, and then find ways to teach the student “better” behaviors, while keeping her or him in the classroom.[3] 

Even for students whose behavior is determined to be a “manifestation” of their disability, there are exceptions to the “ten day” rule.  Under certain circumstances—involving guns, drugs, or serious violence against another person—a student may be removed from the school for up to 45 days, as long as educational services continue to be provided in an “interim alternative educational setting.”[4]  The law does not specify what this term refers to—it simply says that the child should continue to receive educational services while in this setting.  Under some circumstances and in some places, children may be sent to special programs run by the school district, but located away from the school itself.  Under other circumstances, children may be sent to juvenile detention centers, residential treatment centers, or even psychiatric hospitals.  There are educational opportunities at these places, but they are—to say the least—extremely limited.

Even without guns or drugs or violence being involved, schools can legally suspend autistic students more than once a year, so long as educational services continue to be provided.  But if a school repeatedly suspends a child, as punishment for the same or similar behaviors, then it is moving into dangerous legal territory.  Repeated suspensions (even if each one is no more than ten days in length), create a “pattern” of administrative behavior that begins to look like an unstated change of placement (a denial of FAPE).  Federal regulations warn schools not to suspend a student with disabilities for the same or similar behaviors for more than 10 days over the course of a single school year, because this begins to look like a change of placement. [5]  If there are more than ten days of suspension during the year, the school district determines whether the suspensions constitute a change of placement, on a case-by-case basis– but parents have the right to appeal to the courts on the grounds that their child is not receiving FAPE.

If a school decides it wants to expel an autistic child, the IEP team must hold a manifestation determination review within 10 days after the decision is made.  If the child’s behavior is found to be a manifestation of autism, then the child cannot be expelled.  If the behavior is not found to be a manifestation of disability, parents have the right to call for a due process hearing, in which the IEP team’s decision will be reviewed by a hearing officer.  Depending on the state, there may be a one- or a two-tiered system—in the former, the case is heard by a state hearing officer, in the latter, the case is heard first by an officer from the school district, and then (if the parents decide to appeal) by a hearing officer from the state.  If the parents are still not satisfied, they can bring a civil law case against the school district.

This is the law as laid out in the amended text of IDEA and in federal regulations.  Disabled students’ rights to a free, appropriate, public education must be protected.  Unfortunately, though, far too many school districts do actually find ways of removing “troublesome” students without considering whether the “troublesome” behaviors are manifestations of the students’ disabilities, and without following the procedures required by law.  I will discuss some of these practices in my next post.

[1]  IDEA, part B, subpart E, sections 300.530-300.536: https://sites.ed.gov/idea/regs/b/e.

[2]  IDEA, part B, subpart E, section 300.536

[3] IDEA, part B, subpart E, section 300.530.

[4] IDEA, part B, subpart E, section 300.530.

[5] Code of Federal Regulations, 2005.  Title 34:  Education.  Section 300.536, “Change of Placement Because of Disciplinary Removals.”  This regulation was added to the Code in 2005, to clarify the 2004 amendment of IDEA.

Meltdowns in School: Much Better Practices

Anxiety, Education, Human Rights, Myths about Autism, Restraint and Seclusion, , ,

It is perfectly possible to reduce both the frequency and violence of student meltdowns, which will, in turn, reduce the need for restraint and seclusion in schools.[1] However, this requires a change in attitude on the part of educators, towards seeing autistic children not as willfully naughty or manipulative, but as overwhelmed and frightened.  Teachers, aides and other educators also need to be willing to observe these children’s behavior carefully and make “meltdown plans” in advance.  Given the already heavy burden carried by educators today, this may seem like a lot to ask, but dealing effectively with meltdowns will certainly reduce educators’ stress in the long run.

The best practical advice for teachers on this subject that I have found comes from three books. Deborah Lipsky and Will Richards’ Managing Meltdowns:  Using the S.C.A.R.E.D. Calming Technique with Children and Adults with Autism focuses on interventions that can be used during a meltdown.  Deborah Lipsky’s From Anxiety to Meltdown:  How Individuals on the Autism Spectrum Deal with Anxiety, Experience Meltdowns, Manifest Tantrums, and How You Can Intervene Effectively, and Geoff Colvin and Martin Sheehan’s Managing the Cycle of Meltdowns also offer guidance on ways to prevent (or at least limit the number of) meltdowns in the first place.[2]  Lipsky is herself autistic, has experience working as and for first responders (EMTs, firefighters, police officers), and writes from the perspective of her own personal experiences and those of other autistic people she has worked with.  Her collaborator for the first book, Will Richards, is a clinical psychologist, with extensive experience treating autistic clients.  Colvin and Sheehan are professional educators who have spent decades working with autistic children in schools. Despite their very different backgrounds, their conclusions are remarkably similar. 

All these writers clearly distinguish meltdowns from temper tantrums.[3] And all of them describe melting down as a process, which can be interrupted by an observant and skilled teacher or first responder.  Colvin and Sheehan propose a six-phase model of the “meltdown cycle,” in which a student who had been in a state of calm is subject to one or more triggering events, which then lead to increasing agitation until the point of no return is reached and he or she melts down.  Once the meltdown has played itself out, there is a period of re-grouping during which the student is beginning to recover but may easily melt down again if pushed too hard.  Finally, the student becomes calm enough to start over, although with some lingering anxiety, uncertainty, and irritation.[4] Lipsky does not present her observations in quite the same way, but a careful reading of her book shows that she holds a very similar view of the meltdown as a process.[5] 

“Avoiding it in the first place is the most effective way of preventing a meltdown.”[6]  Both Lipsky and Colvin and Sheehan offer extensive advice on how to maintain a student with autism in the calm phase, which essentially comes down to using best practices for teachers of autistic students:  providing sensory diets as needed, using visual supports, having clear rules (systematically taught to the whole class), planning ahead, and adjusting the curriculum as needed.  The three authors also encourage teachers and aides to identify and limit as much as possible triggers that may disrupt a student’s calm participation in class—whether these are sensory issues, unexpected breaks in routine, or something else.[7]

Teachers must also learn how to recognize the signs of increasing agitation, and how to intervene to de-escalate the situation with reassurance, comfort, and support.  According to Colvin and Sheehan, agitation is “normally an observable manifestation that something is wrong with the student.”[8]  While some students move very quickly through the agitation phase to a full-blown meltdown, offering little time for intervention, much more often there is a period of agitation during which an observant teacher will notice increased stimming, wriggling, pacing and noise-making, or decreased interaction with others, including partial or total loss of the ability to communicate, non-compliance with directions, covering eyes or staring into space, hiding hands or even seeking isolation.[9]  Training teachers to recognize these signs can have a huge impact on the frequency and violence of meltdowns in their classrooms.  When an autistic student is becoming agitated, the teacher or classroom aide can step in to provide reassurance and empathy, offer opportunities for breaks or for movement to quiet spaces, and encourage self-management (if the student already has some skills in this area).  Reducing an autistic student’s agitation is the key to preventing meltdowns.  It is essential that school personnel not become agitated themselves during this phase, as this will simply increase the student’s agitation and make a meltdown more likely.[10] 

If a teacher misses or ignores the signs, the student’s agitation will continue to increase until they reach a “point of no return,” after which a meltdown is going to occur no matter what.[11]   And once the meltdown begins, it will need to run its course, which typically ends when the child is too exhausted to continue.  School personnel and school police officers must recognize that at this point the student cannot control her or his behavior, and neither can they.  Shouting commands at a frightened child in the middle of an instinctual fight-or-flight reaction can only make the situation worse. Instead, the school should already have decided on an action plan and included it in the student’s IEP.  (Obviously, if a child is having meltdowns in school, he or she should have an IEP).  Staff should be trained in advance in ways of providing support for the melting-down student, by limiting additional sensory input, remaining calm, staying nearby (but not too close), and saying encouraging things in a low-pitched, slow voice.[12]  According to Lipsky, the calm and sympathetic use of the student’s name during a meltdown can be especially helpful.[13]  Educators should know how to calmly and quietly guide the student to a safe place and the meltdown plan should always ensure that someone observes the child while he or she is there.  If there is an immediate threat of injury to the student or those nearby, strategies should be in place for using (and later reporting) safe forms of restraint as a last (not first) resort.  Under some circumstances it may be better to clear the classroom of other students, until the meltdown is over. [14]

When the meltdown is past, it is cruel and counterproductive to criticize the student—who is physically and emotionally exhausted, and probably already deeply embarrassed about/ashamed of what happened.[15]  It should be unnecessary to say that police involvement after the meltdown is ended can only be counterproductive.  Neither is it useful to interrogate the student about why the meltdown happened.  (Discussion of the meltdown can occur sometime later—perhaps even the following day.)  Autistic children are still emotionally labile during the “regrouping” phase and may escalate into a second meltdown if pushed too hard.  Rather, the teacher or an aide should continue to offer quiet support and can encourage the student to use a stim toy or pursue their special interest as a way of bringing them back from the fight for survival into the ordinary world.[16]

Eventually, the student will return to a non-agitated, relatively normal state during the “starting over” phase, and can return to the classroom (if they left it during the meltdown).  Nevertheless, they may still be feeling some anxiety, irritability, or uncertainty, and should not be pushed too quickly to engage in normal learning activities.  Concrete tasks, which the student has already shown he or she can perform, are the best activities for this period; engaging in such tasks can help the student gain confidence and eventually return to their original state of calm.[17]

Good teachers here and there throughout the United States have already learned how to manage meltdowns successfully, using these or similar techniques.  It is time for such techniques to become standard practice in all of our schools.  But it all starts with changing the attitudes of the adults involved towards the autistic students they serve.

[1] Grafton Integrated Health Care, a for-profit behavioral health organization, has claimed that its proprietary “Ukeru model” has reduced incidents of restraint by 99% and incidents of seclusion by 100% over the course of 14 years (2003-2016), in community as well as institutional settings.  They claim that staff injuries from restraint have declined by 100% in community settings, and 97% in institutions:  Jason Craig and Kimberly Sanders, “Evaluation of a Program Model for Minimizing Restraint and Seclusion,” Advances in Neurodevelopmental Disorders 2 (2018), 344-352.  The authors of this paper are affiliated with Grafton, and I have not been able to discover any corroborating analyses conducted by unaffiliated scientists. 

[2] Deborah Lipsky and Will Richards, Managing Meltdowns:  Using the S.C.A.R.E.D. Calming Technique with Children and Adults with Autism (London:  Jessica Kingsley, 2009); Deborah Lipsky, From Anxiety to Meltdown: How Individuals on the Autism Spectrum Deal with Anxiety, Experience Meltdowns, Manifest Tantrums, and How You Can Intervene Effectively (London:  Jessica Kingsley, 2011) and Geoff Colvin and Martin Sheehan, Managing the Cycle of Meltdowns for Students with Autism Spectrum Disorder (Thousand Oaks, CA:  Corwin, 2012).  Another excellent book on this subject is Judy Endow’s Outsmarting Explosive Behavior: A Visual System of Support and Intervention for Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorders (Shawnee Mission, Kansas: Autism Publishing Company, 2009).

[3] Lipsky and Richards, Managing Meltdowns, section entitled “Are Meltdowns and Temper Tantrums the Same Thing?” (I am using the Kindle edition of the book, which has no page numbers); Lipsky, From Anxiety to Meltdown, p. 108, 135-42, and especially 149-52 (on determining whether behavior is a tantrum or a meltdown).  Incidentally, Lipsky also offers some very useful suggestions for dealing with tantrums, even though her main focus is on meltdowns:  see pp. 142-49Colvin and Sheehan, Managing the Cycle of Meltdowns, pp. 22-25.

[4] Colvin and Sheehan, Managing the Cycle, pp. 29-30.

[5] Lipsky, From Anxiety to Meltdown, see especially, p. 127.  Judy Endow has a similar model: Outsmarting Explosive Behavior: A Visual System of Support and Intervention for Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorders (Shawnee Mission, Kansas: Autism Publishing Company, 2009), pp. 11-46.

[6]    Lipsky, From Anxiety to Meltdown, p. 229.

[7] Colvin and Sheehan, Managing the Cycle of Meltdowns, pp. 63-108; discussion of potential triggers is a particular strength of Lipsky’s book, From Anxiety to Meltdown, pp. 161-214.

[8] Colvin and Sheehan, Managing the Cycle of Meltdowns, p. 39.

[9] Colvin and Sheehan, Managing the Cycle of Meltdowns, pp. 40-43; Lipsky and Richards, Managing Meltdowns, section on “What Are Some of the Warning Signs of a Potential Meltdown?”

[10] Colvin and Sheehan, Managing the Cycle of Meltdowns, pp. 109-22.

[11] The phrase “point of no return” is used by Judy Endow, Outsmarting Explosive Behavior, pp. 35-40.  She uses it to emphasize that once a child has reached this point they are no longer in control of their behavior; making a meltdown inevitable.

[12] Lipsky and Richards, Managing Meltdowns; Lipsky, From Anxiety to Meltdowns, pp. 216-22; Colvin and Sheehan, Managing the Cycle of Meltdowns, pp. 135-36

[13] Lipsky, From Anxiety to Meltdown, p. 221.

[14] Colvin and Sheehan, Managing the Cycle of Meltdowns, p. 123-41; compare Lipsky, From Anxiety to Meltdown, p. 221.

[15] Lipsky, From Anxiety to Meltdown, pp. 110, 126, 141.

[16] Colvin and Sheehan, Managing the Cycle of Meltdowns, pp. 142-53.

[17] Colvin and Sheehan, Managing the Cycle of Meltdowns, pp. 49-51, 154-68.

Bullying In Schools

Bullying, Education, Human Rights, ,

Trigger warning:  descriptions of bullying

 

“I feel like the public school system failed me.”[1]

 

If you are a school bully looking for an easy target, you will soon discover that the nearest kid with autism fits your needs perfectly. Being generally naïve about social customs and interactions, children with autism are easily manipulated or tricked into dangerous situations.  Because of their unusual behaviors (and sometimes by personal preference), they tend to be socially isolated, leaving them with no protective support network of peers.  Teachers and other authority figures may mistrust or even dislike them, and so often fail to back them up when they report being bullied (see below).[2]

Scholars who have researched this subject all agree that students with autism spectrum conditions are disproportionately affected by bullying.  Depending on their definitions of bullying, the samples of children they study, and their methodology, their estimates of how many autistic kids have experienced bullying within a single year range from a low of 57% to a high of 94%.[3]  Some have concluded that children with autism are four times more likely to be targeted than neurotypical kids, and that 40% of autistic kids are bullied daily, compared with only 15% of neurotypical kids. Children with autism are also more likely to be targeted than other children with special needs (except perhaps for those with ADHD—another “unpopular” group at school) or obese children (also common targets for bullies).[4]  Having been bullied, some children with autism then go on to become bullies themselves, but only at about the same rate as neurotypical kids who have been bullied.  However, if they have both autism and ADHD, the likelihood of their becoming bullies in response to bullying increases. [5] 

Most U.S. schools now have anti-bullying programs, but few of these programs are effective.  (One exception is a program, developed in Finland but now being adopted in the United States, that targets by-standers[6].)  Overall, autistic students who have been bullied report receiving little support from their schools.  It is possible that busy teachers genuinely don’t see the cruelty perpetrated in their classrooms.  However, victims—to whom the situation is painfully obvious—often find it hard to imagine that their teachers don’t see what’s happening, so they conclude that the teachers simply don’t care: “They did absolutely nothing. Ignoring it was their best policy.”[7]  This perceived (and sometimes real) indifference adds an additional layer to the trauma the victims of bullying are already suffering.

Even when bullying is formally reported to the school authorities, the victim’s testimony may not be believed.  (My own family had to deal with this problem several times.)  If there are two different accounts of what happened, the school will often refuse to take a side: “I swear on my grave I never lied about anything. But when it came to authority, I’d report a kid, the principal or vice principal would do nothing. They would tell me how they talked to the other kid and listened to my story and didn’t know who was lying.“[8][9] “[The teachers’] favorite mantra was always ‘it’s their word against yours.’”[10]  However, since those who bully generally have a stronger support network than their autistic victims, they may actually find it easier to get their accounts corroborated.  This is especially the case with the “popular” kids, whom adults may perceive as “good people,” who “would never engage in bullying.”  And so, in far too many cases, the school actually accepts what the bullies have to say: “when I told a co-ordinator that 2 girls in my class were bullying me, her ‘solution’ was to call the girls up to her office and ask them in front of me if they were bullying me. Of course they told lies and the situation got worse after that . . .”[11]  “ . . . .  when I reported it to the teachers, ‘sorry we have to go with majority on this’.”[12] In cases like these, the situation either fails to improve or more commonly gets worse.  Sometimes the person who has been bullied gets punished (most often for retaliating, but sometimes even for reporting) and the bully gets off scot free.[13]  In Arkansas, for example, a student who reported being bullied to his teacher was called a “tattle-tale,” and forced to sit in the “time-out” chair.[14]  At this point, a victim will simply stops looking to the school for support: “I got tired of teachers never doing anything about the bullying so I quit telling my teachers about the bullying.”[15]

To make matters worse, the adults in charge of schools are sometimes bullies themselves.  Leaving aside the sometimes abusive use of physical restraint and seclusion, and other institutional forms of control and discipline (which will be the subject of a later post), individual teachers, aides, coaches, and school administrators sometimes victimize their students in appalling ways.  In Georgia, one teacher resigned, after a school determined she had repeatedly  sprayed Lysol into her student’s face.[16]  In Texas, a group of teachers gave a student awards for being “Most Gullible” and a “Drama King” at the end-of-year awards ceremony.[17]  In Michigan, a teacher recorded and distributed a video of herself and the school principal taunting a child who had gotten stuck in a chair.[18]  I come from a family of public school teachers, and I am very sympathetic to the difficulties teachers today face in the classroom, but there is no excuse for this kind of behavior.  Never.  Any.  Excuse.

 

 

 

[1] IdahoRose, in the “How Did Your Teacher’s Deal with Bullies?” discussion on the Wrong Planet website: http://wrongplanet.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=146798.

[2] On the reasons behind bullying autistics, see Rebekah Heinrichs, Perfect Targets:  Asperger Syndrome and Bullying (Shawnee Mission, KS:  Autism Asperger Publishing, 2003), as well as the articles cited below.

[3] M. C. Cappadocia, et al., “Bullying Experiences Among Children and Youth with Autism Spectrum Disorders,” Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 42 (2012), 267 and 271; Neil Humphrey and Judith Hebron, “Bullying of Children and Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Conditions:  A ‘State of the Field’ Review,” International Journal of Inclusive Education 19 (2015), 849.

[4] For comparison with neurotypical children and children with other special needs, see Jessica Schroeder, et al., “Shedding Light on a Pervasive Problem:  A Review of Research on Bullying Experiences Among Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders,” Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 44 (2014), 1522-26; Neil Humphrey and Judith Hebron, “Bullying of Children and Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Conditions:  A ‘State of the Field’ Review,” International Journal of Inclusive Education 19 (2015), 849.  For comparison with obese children, see Ryan Adams, Somer Bishop, and Julie Taylor, “Negative Peer Experiences in Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorders,” International Review of Research in Developmental Disabilities 52 (2017), 75-107.

[5] Jessica Schroeder, et al., “Shedding Light on a Pervasive Problem:  A Review of Research on Bullying Experiences Among Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders,” Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 44 (2014), 1522.  Cynthia Kim offers an autobiographical account of how she went from victim to bully:  Nerdy, Shy, and Socially Inappropriate:  A User Guide to an Asperger Life (London:  Jessica Kingsley, 2015), p. 14-15.

[6] A. Karna, M. Voeten, et al., “A Large-Scale Evaluation of the KiVa Antibullying Program, Grades 4-6,” Child Development 82 (2011), 311-30.

[7] LeeAnderson, in the “How Did Your Teacher’s Deal with Bullies?” discussion on the Wrong Planet website: http://wrongplanet.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=146798.

[8] Pandora_Box, in the “How Did Your Teacher’s Deal with Bullies?” discussion on the Wrong Planet website: http://wrongplanet.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=146798.

[9] Pandora_Box, in the “How Did Your Teacher’s Deal with Bullies?” discussion on the Wrong Planet website: http://wrongplanet.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=146798.

[10] Verdandi, in the “How Did Your Teacher’s Deal with Bullies?” discussion on the Wrong Planet website:

http://wrongplanet.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=146798.

[11] CreativeInfluenza, in the “How Did Your Teacher’s Deal with Bullies?” discussion on the Wrong Planet website: http://wrongplanet.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=146798.

[12] Pandora_Box, in the “How Did Your Teacher’s Deal with Bullies?” discussion on the Wrong Planet website: http://wrongplanet.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=146798.

[13] Some examples of the negative consequences of reporting:  MightyMorphin, in the “If You Were Bullied At School . . . “ discussion on the Wrong Planet website:  http://wrongplanet.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=204456&start=45;

JoeDaBro, in the “My School Hates Autism” discussion on the Wrong Planet website:  http://wrongplanet.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=231793; Sparrow Rose Jones, No You Don’t: Essays from an Unstrange Mind (Self-published, 2013), p. 94.

[14] “Parents of Child with Autism File Bullying Lawsuit Against Omaha, Ark. School District,”  KY3 TV, December 12, 2017:  http://www.ky3.com/content/news/Parents-of-child-with-autism-file-bullying-lawsuit-against-Omaha-AR-School-District–463754753.html.

[15] ladyelaine, in the “Why School Sucked” discussion on the Wrong Planet website:  https://wrongplanet.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=357585&start=45.

[16] Carl Willis, “Mother Says Son Was Sprayed with Lysol by Teacher,” WSBTV, November 14, 2017: http://www.whio.com/news/national/mother-says-son-with-autism-was-sprayed-with-lysol-teacher/MoQdOQjYHI7i4NA35prrLJ/.

[17] Kristie Smith, “Educators Should Never Set Students Up to Be Bullied,” Dallas News, June, 2014:  https://www.dallasnews.com/news/special-needs/2014/06/09/educators-should-never-set-students-up-to-be-bullied.

[18] Lee Moran, “See It:  Teacher Films Herself, Principal Teasing Autistic Boy Stuck in Chair,” New York Daily News, February 26, 2014:  http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/teacher-films-principal-teasing-autistic-boy-article-1.1702106.

[19] Tharja, in the “Bullied By Teachers???” discussion on the Wrong Planet website:  http://wrongplanet.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=98154&start=75

[20] thechadmaster, in the “How Did Your Teacher’s Deal with Bullies?” discussion on the Wrong Planet website: http://wrongplanet.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=146798.

 

Aggression Against Self and Others: What the Scientists Have to Say

Aggression, Education, Human Rights, Myths about Autism, , ,

Autistic students have, in the past, broken their teacher’s arms, knocked out their teeth, and even given them concussions.  There have been incidents in which students have banged their own heads against walls, scratched their arms until they bled, and bitten their fingers.  There have also been incidents in which their classmates have been injured.  So schools are rightly concerned about autistic kids engaging in behaviors—self-injury, punching, biting, and kicking—that are potentially dangerous to themselves or others.

Nevertheless, schools cannot treat every autistic child as a time-bomb, ready to explode at any moment.  There are certainly some students on the autism spectrum who must be treated with great care, but there are also many who have outbursts only under extreme circumstances, and still others who pose no threat at all.  Unfortunately, the research on the prevalence of aggression in this population remains limited, and what exists has various weaknesses.  Nevertheless, it is worth reviewing, because it shows that “the violent autistic child” is not nearly as common as the general public, as well as many teachers and school administrators, assume.

Estimates of “self-injurious behavior” (SIB), for example, have been skewed by the populations sampled.  One group of researchers looked at 250 children and teens with autism who were enrolled in genetic studies at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, Canada.  They found that 52.3% had engaged in SIB at some point in their life.[1]  This study was often cited in the years after its publication in 2012, and the idea that more than half of autistic kids injured themselves became widely accepted.  In 2016, however, a different group of scholars published the results of their research on more than 8,000 autistic children tracked by the Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring Network in the United States.  They pointed out that the 2012 study, conducted in a hospital, had “over-sampled” kids with challenging behaviors and major impairments.  The 2016 study placed the percentage of autistic kids who self-injured at around 27.7%.  This is still a significant number, but it is only about half that of the earlier, widely-cited study.[2]

Research on aggression against other people has been complicated by disagreements about terminology (the authors of one study noted that other researchers were reluctant even to use the term “aggression”[3]) and weakened by failure to distinguish clearly between the prevalence and persistence of different forms of aggression.  One study, based on a fairly large sample of children, concluded that 68% had at one time or another demonstrated aggression against their care-givers, and 49% had at one time or another been aggressive towards non-caregivers.[4]  It should be noted, however, that these figures covered the children’s entire lifetime, including the period when they were toddlers (who generally tend to do a fair amount of hitting and kicking, even if they are neurotypical.)  When the researchers examined behavior at the time of the study, they found that 56% of the autistic children sampled were “currently” aggressive towards their caregivers, while 32% were aggressive towards non-caregivers.

The authors of this study focused on these general numbers, which they claimed showed that the prevalence of aggression among autistic children was “high.”  However, when they broke down their figures still further, to look at the prevalence of different kinds of violence, it turns out that a much smaller number (35.4% of all the kids in the study) were currently engaged in what the researchers called “definite aggression”—hitting, kicking, punching, etc.  The other children in the “aggressive” category (roughly 25% of the total) were currently practicing only “mild aggression,” defined as playing roughly, verbally threatening other people, or lashing out after being provoked.  Most importantly, 39.8% of the sample showed no aggressive behavior at all.   lt turns out, then, that of the autistic kids in this study, more were currently avoiding all aggressive behaviors than were involved in “definite aggression.”  If we combine the non-aggressive and mildly aggressive categories, it turns out that 65% of the sample studied actually seem pretty similar to “normal” kids.  However, in practice it is quite difficult to know how autistic aggression compares with neurotypical aggression, since studies on aggression in autism generally involve no control group of non-autistic children.[5]

A number of researchers have examined the “risk factors” for self-injurious and aggressive behaviors.  In terms of SIB, one study found that abnormal sensory processing was the most important predictor of self-injury[6]  Other researchers conclude that SIB is particularly common not only in those with abnormal sensory processing, but also those with regressive forms of autism, irritability, hyper-activity, mood issues, sleep issues, and severe communication limitations.[7]  There are some indications that SIB may decline as communication improves over time.[8]  Factors associated with aggression against others include youth (aggressive behavior declines with age among autistic as well as neurotypical children), social and communication problems, higher levels of “repetitive behaviors” (stimming), and—oddly enough—higher family income.[9]  A very high percentage of autistic children and adolescents (50-80%) suffer from sleep problems.  One recent study found a particularly significant correlation between lack of sleep and various problem behaviors, including hyperactivity, irritability, and physical aggression in autistic youth.[10]

The scientific evidence, then, suggests that a significant minority of young people with autism will engage in self-injurious behaviors (27.7%) and significant aggression against others (35.4%).  (A further area of concern is “meltdown” behavior, which I will address in another post.)  According to scientists, the individuals who engage in these behaviors tend to be younger children, those who have gone through early regression, those who are irritable and hyperactive due to poor sleep, those unable to communicate in other ways, and those with the kinds of sensory processing that make the world unpredictable and often painful.  Teachers and administrators would do well to consider and try to mitigate these factors before they condemn autistic children who “act out.”

 

 

 

[1] Emma Duerden, Hannah Oatley, Kathleen Mak-Fan, et al., “Risk Factors Associated with Self-Injurious Behaviors in Children and Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorders,” Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 42 (2012), 2460-70.

[2] Gnakub Soke, Steven Rosenberg, Richard Hamman, et al., “Brief Report:  Prevalence of Self-Injurious Behaviors among Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder:  A Population-Based Study,” Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 46 (2016), 3607-14.

[3] Cristan Farmer and Michael Aman, “Aggressive Behavior in a Sample of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders,” Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders 5 (2011), 317-23.

[4] Stephen Kanne and Micah Mazurek, “Aggression in Children and Adolescents with ASD:  Prevalence and Risk Factors,” Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 41 (2011), 926-37.  The sample was made up of children enrolled in a multi-university research study on autism, which—like the hospital study mentioned above—probably “oversampled” those with challenging behaviors.

[5] There are many studies of aggressive behavior among children who have suffered trauma, who have been raised in poverty, etc.  I have found it difficult to find estimates for aggression among neurotypical children as a whole.  And in any case, different measures are used in studies on autistic and studies on non-autistic children, which makes comparisons virtually impossible.

[6] Emma Duerden, Hannah Oatley, Kathleen Mak-Fan, et al., “Risk Factors Associated with Self-Injurious Behaviors in Children and Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorders,” Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 42 (2012), 2460-70

[7] G. Soke, S. Rosenberg, R. Hamman, et al., “Factors Associated with Self-Injurious Behaviors in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders:  Findings from Two Large National Samples,” Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 47 (2017), 285-96;

[8] Jeffrey Danforth, “Self-Injurious Behavior (SIB),” in Fred Volkmar, Encyclopedia of Autism Spectrum Disorders (New York:  Springer, 2013), 110-39.

[9]  Stephen Kanne and Micah Mazurek, “Aggression in Children and Adolescents with ASD:  Prevalence and Risk Factors,” Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 41 (2011), 926-37.  One might speculate that aggressive behaviors are attributed to factors other than autism in children with lower family incomes.

[10] Micah Mazurek and Kristin Sohl, “Sleep and Behavioral Problems in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders,” Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 46 (2016), 1906-15.