Absenteeism - Module 4

2. STRATEGIES AND TECHNIQUES

2.1. BULLYING / EXCLUSION FROM PEERS

An inability to communicate certain thoughts and feelings, while bullying is not uncommon even for kids not diagnosed with ASD, there are certain characteristics of autistic children that make them an easier target for bullying. Student diagnosed with ASD may have some or all of these characteristics:

  • Show limited control over what is happening around them and situations
  • Have feelings of inadequacy and poor self-esteem
  • Difficulty understanding facial expressions, tone of voice and body language of others
  • Socially cut off from their peers
  • Labelled as “inadequate” by their peers or teachers
  • Apear depressed or self-destructive
Prevention

Research has obtained results that bullying can be prevented. It is created a ‘package for the prevention of youth violence and associated risk behaviours’ that intended to impact individual behaviours, as well as relationship, family, school, the community and the social factors that influence the risk and protection factors of violence.

The strategies are designed to work together and be used in combination to prevent

violence. These approaches, particularly are aimed at strengthen the skills of young people and modify the physical and social environment, have shown to reduce violence and harassment.

  • Promote family environments that support healthy development: parenting skills and family relationship programs.
  • Provide quality education early in life: strengthen youth’s skills
  • Mentoring programs: a school-based intervention designed for at-risk middle school students that aims to develop critical social skills, encourages academic achievement and provides positive, life-enriching experiences for the participants. 
  • Create protective community environments: modify the physical and social environment, reduce exposure to community-level risk. 
  • Building a positive school climate: create the feeling of belonging and that it is a protected environment with details that can arise from a greeting, the way a problem is resolved, or how people work together.
  • It is necessary to dedicate hours in class to learning, by teachers and students, social and emotional learning, involves teaching skills of self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, responsible decision making, and relationships management. It improves emotional well-being, self-regulation, classroom relationships, and kind and helpful behaviour among students. It reduces a range of problems like anxiety, emotional distress, and depression; reduces disruptive behaviours like conflicts, aggression, bullying, anger, and hostile attribution bias; and it improves academic achievement, creativity, and leadership.
Detection

It is important to be familiar with the symptoms that a student subject to bullying normally demonstrates in order to be able to detect this phenomenon.

  • Inexplicable injuries
  • Lost or destroyed clothing, books, electronics…
  • Frequent headaches or stomach aches, feeling sick or faking illness
  • Changes in eating habits, like suddenly skipping meals or binge eating. Kids may come home from school hungry because they did not eat breakfast.
  • Difficulty sleeping or frequent nightmares
  • Declining grades, loss of interest in schoolwork, or not wanting to go to school
  • Sudden loss of friends or avoidance of social situations
  • Feelings of helplessness or decreased self esteem
  • Self-destructive behaviours such as running away from home, harming themselves, or talking about suicide

Statistics show that only 20% of school bullying incidents were reported. It is difficult for children to tell adults the situation. Specially, students with ASD have greater barriers because they often do not have the communication skills to transmit it, and because they do not like to feel rejected by their peers and social isolated.

Intervention

When a case of bullying is suspected, when notification is made through the family or other students that bullying may be occurring, notification must be made immediately to the Counsellor and the Director.

  • Follow the school’s procedures for reporting and addressing bullying behaviour: it depends on each country or region, there are specific protocols for action.
  • Encourage the bullied student to talk about what happened. It helps to let the student know you believe them and are concerned.
  • If the student cannot verbalize what happened, use writing, playing or drawing methods.
  • Reassure the students that reporting the situation is not “tattling” on another student

Bullying is of interest to researchers and clinicians and a variety of intervention models has been proposed to reduce or prevent it. Some of these programs have focused interventions directly on the students involved (i.e., the bully/cyberbully, the victims and the bystanders), while others aim to change the broader social climate (e.g., whole school approaches). Some studies have shown more effective the whole school approach than individual programs, but both shown positive effects. 

Besides, it has been shown how the activities worked in group have improved the group cohesion, while the improvement in social aspects has contributed to reduce the number of isolated students and eliminate possible rejections, establishing ties much stronger social networks that undoubtedly manage to create a network of mutual support. For its part, the elaboration of the rules of coexistence in a cooperative way, by the students, has helped to be accepted by all of them and assumed as a group commitment