Yesterday was National Day of Action against Bullying, with schools and communities across the nation joining together to say “Bullying. No way!”. While bullying can happen to anyone, there are certain groups of people who are more vulnerable to bullying, and these include people with communication disorders.
Did you know that according to research:
- Young people with communication disabilities are more at risk of bullying than their peers, and more likely to experience persistent bullying.1
- 36% of 11 year old students with Specific Language Impairment (SLI) in a British study considered themselves at risk of being bullied in school compared with only 12% of their peers.2
- Children who stutter “were rejected significantly more often than were their peers and were significantly less likely to be popular…..and were more likely to be nominated to the ‘bullied’ categories”.3
- more than half of (children who stutter) are teased or bullied regularly.4
- 62% of students with Autism Spectrum Disorder report being bullied once a week or more*. This is significantly higher than the 1 in 5 to 1 in 7 Australian students who report being bullied once a week or more**.5
- 58% of adolescents (with Autism Spectrum Disorder) continue to need support for bullying and discrimination during their high school years.6
The impact of bullying on mental health is well-documented. So what can we as parents, teachers, communities do about it?
Standing together, as we did yesterday, is a great start. Joining forces gives a strong message that bullying is not acceptable, and creates the opportunity to find solutions together.
Websites such as www. bullyingnoway.gov.au have information about strategies that work (and strategies that don’t) for preventing and managing bullying. Educating our children and our school communities is vital.
For children with communication disorders, it is important that families, schools and Speech Pathologists work together. A recommendation from Speech Pathology Australia’s Inquiry into students with a disability or special needs in New South Wales Schools (2016) is that “supports need to be tailored to the needs of individual students, and be developed and implemented in partnership with the school, principal, teachers, parent/family and student”.
Speech Pathology intervention directly targets a child’s area of need, whether stuttering, clarity of speech, comprehension, expression, or social skills. If you are worried about your child’s communication, please contact us to discuss your concerns. Our mission, “enriching communication and learning for life”, is all about helping your child grow and flourish. We look forward to hearing from you!
1 Speech Pathology Australia (2016). Inquiry into students with a disability or special needs in New South Wales schools.
2 Knox, E. and Conti-Ramsden, G. (2003). “Bullying risks of 11-year-old children with specific language impairment (SLI): Does school placement matter?”.
3 Davis, S., Howell, P. and Cooke, F. (2002). “Sociodynamic relationships between children who stutter and their non-stuttering classmates”.
4 Onslow, M. (2017). “Teased and bullied – the challenges of starting school with a stutter”.
5 *2007 Channel 7 Children’s research by Verity Bottroff and Phillip Slee, cited in Developing Inclusive School Communities: Addressing Bullying of Students with an Autism Spectrum Disorder (PDF). Paper presented at: Making sense of autism and strategies that succeed conference, 4-5 September 2008, The Children’s Hospital at Westmead Educational Research Institute (CHERI): Sydney.
**As cited on the Bullying. No Way! website.
6 Autism Spectrum Australia (Aspect), October 2013, We Belong Too: The Experiences, Needs and Service Requirements of Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder.
