Autism and Bullying

Autism bullying is common, but it can be prevented. Bullying is a serious problem in schools, and research keeps finding the same thing: children with Autism are among the students most likely to be bullied. Autistic children often communicate and read social situations differently from their peers, and they can stand out in ways that bullies target. The good news is that bullying is not inevitable. Schools, parents and peers can all change the environment so that autistic children are safe and accepted.

What is the relationship between Autism & Bullying

Autistic children are more vulnerable to bullying, and the reasons have more to do with how others respond to difference than with anything wrong with the child. Unwritten social rules, sarcasm and hidden intentions can be hard to read, so an autistic child may not realize that someone who seems friendly is setting them up. Children with ASD are more often targets of so-called ‘covert bullying‘, where non-autistic peers use manipulation, “jokes” or exclusion that adults may not notice, leaving the child with ASD in confusing and upsetting situations.

Why Are Autistic Children Bullied?

Common reasons for bullying of autistic people include being seen as different, taking words literally, finding it hard to spot teasing or manipulation, spending time alone, sensory reactions such as covering ears, and deep interests that peers don’t share. None of these are the child’s fault. Bullying is a choice the other person makes. Our guide to navigating autism and bullying goes deeper into why autistic children are targeted.

Children with autism or related disabilities are often reported to be 2 to 3 times more likely to be bullied than their non-autistic peers. Kids with Autism Spectrum diagnoses can be even more exposed because of differences in cognitive abilities, communication, social understanding and motor skills. Inclusive classrooms are the right goal, but Autism in the classroom only works well when the school also builds real belonging. Without that, students with ADHD and autistic students can be physically included but socially left out.

Bullying and Autism: Facts & Figures

In a survey reported in Comprehensive Pediatric Nursing, parents of autistic children shared these figures.

• 65% of parents of school-age children with autism reported that their child had been victimized by peers in some way in the past year
• 47% reported that their child had been hit by peers or siblings
• 50% reported that their child was scared to go to school or to talk to certain peers
• 9% were mobbed by a group of peers and hurt in their private parts
• 12% said their child had rarely been invited to a birthday party in the last 3 years
• 6% were almost never picked for school or class teams
• 3% ate lunch alone every day

3 Categories of Bullying faced by Children with Autism

There are 3 main types of bullying that a child with Autism may face day to day:

• Exploitive: where the child, or their autistic traits, are made fun of in the settings where they feel least sure of themselves, such as class, social media or the playground.
• Manipulative: where the child is coerced or controlled emotionally, and sometimes physically.
• Conditional friendship: where friendship with a mate, or a place in a group, comes at the cost of being bullied from time to time.

How are Children with Autism being Bullied

Bullying can happen anywhere children gather, at school, at play and online. The forms of bullying most often reported for children with Autism or ADHD are:

• Being socially isolated or deliberately left out
• Verbal abuse, such as taunting, put-downs and name-calling
• Spreading lies or rumors
• Racial or sexual harassment
• Cyberbullying on social media, phones or online games
• Physical abuse, including kicking, hitting, punching, spitting or shoving
• Having belongings, such as money or stationery, taken or damaged
• Being pressured or threatened into doing something, or into not doing something
• Being deliberately set up to have a meltdown, for example by triggering sensory overload, so the child gets in trouble

Parties involved or impacted by bullying

Bullying is never just about two children. Many people have a role to play:

• The child being bullied, who carries the hurt
• The child doing the bullying, who is responsible for the behavior (and often needs support too)
• Bystanders, who can either join in, stay silent or step in and get help
• Educators, who may not know about the bullying but may notice changes in the autistic child’s behavior
• Parents and caregivers, who often live with the effects of long-running bullying at home

Signs of Bullying in Children with Autism

As a parent, carer or educator, you can’t be with a child all the time. Children with Autism may take a long time to tell anyone about bullying. Some don’t recognize that what is happening is bullying. Others have learned, through repeated unkind experiences, to expect it, or they find it hard to put what happened into words. Children who are non-speaking or minimally speaking may have no easy way to tell you at all.

Sometimes bullying goes on for months before a child speaks up or reaches breaking point. Behavior is communication, so watch for these signs:

• More stress and anxiety than usual
• Being more emotionally sensitive, or having more meltdowns or shutdowns, especially after school
• Sudden routine change, for example in eating or sleeping patterns
• Not wanting to go to school
• Unexplained cuts or bruises
• Damaged books, torn clothing or missing belongings
• A sudden drop in schoolwork or difficulty concentrating
• Avoiding talking about school, or seeming scared to open up
• Acting out bullying scenes in play or drawings, or repeating hurtful phrases (scripting)

Effects of Bullying on an Autistic Child

The effects that autism and bullying together can have on a child are serious and often long-lasting. Here are some of the short-term and long-term effects.

Short Term Effects

• Anger
• Depression
• Anxiety about places where bullying might happen
• Getting sick more often
• Lower grades than peers who are not bullied
• Suicidal thoughts

If you are ever worried about your child’s immediate safety, call 000. For support, your child can contact Kids Helpline on 1800 55 1800, and you can call Lifeline on 13 11 14.

Longer Term Effects

• Fewer job and study opportunities
• Lingering anger and bitterness
• Difficulty trusting others in relationships
• Withdrawing from other people
• Low self-esteem
• In some cases, going on to bully others

Strategies to handle Bullying of Children with Autism

Parents and educators can help autistic children learn ways to respond to bullying and to speak up for themselves. Self-advocacy skills, like knowing who to tell and how to say “stop”, are valuable.

But research is clear that the responsibility shouldn’t sit with the child being bullied. The most successful approaches create a culture of respect and acceptance in classrooms and playgrounds. Clear, consistent leadership from school principals makes bullying unacceptable, so that incidents are rare rather than commonplace. Adults also need training to recognize the early signs of bullying, to look honestly at which strategies have and haven’t worked in their school, and to advocate for children when they need it.

Can SEL Help to Solve Autism Bullying?

Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) helps all children build skills for school, personal growth and relationships. High-quality SEL programs can lead to real improvements in students’ social and emotional wellbeing, self-confidence and classroom interactions. They may also reduce emotional distress such as stress and anxiety, which are direct or indirect consequences of bullying. SEL works best when it teaches the whole class to understand and accept differences, not only when it asks autistic children to fit in.

What do you need to Combat Bullying?

A whole-school approach. Skills-based support for the autistic child can help, especially support with self-advocacy, recognizing when someone is being unkind and knowing how to get help. But misunderstandings between autistic and non-autistic people run both ways (this is called the double empathy problem), so peers and staff need to learn too. The aim is never to make the child “less autistic” so they stop being a target. It is to make bullying unacceptable and give the child tools to stay safe.

Factors that Work or Don’t Work against Bullying

What Doesn’t Work

• Accepting bullying as a normal or temporary phase
• Focusing only on physical abuse
• Individual counseling alone (for either the child being bullied or the child doing the bullying)
• A hard-line zero tolerance approach on its own
• One-off or isolated efforts, like a single lecture
• Adults taking over the child’s problem without involving them

What Works

• Changing the school climate
• Teaching bystanders about their role
• Safety net programs, such as safe spaces and trusted adults at break times
• Active parent and caregiver involvement
• Supportive relationships with educators
• Building a peer support network

7 Essential Strategies to handle Bullying & Autism in Classrooms

These 7 social and emotional skills can help children, autistic and non-autistic, respond to bullying. They are best taught to the whole class, in a way that respects how autistic children think and communicate. More autism classroom strategies are in our guide to supporting autistic students day to day.

1. Emotional perception: recognizing your own feelings and other people’s.
2. Emotion regulation: finding ways to manage big feelings, including sensory breaks and calm spaces.
3. Social inference and reading cues: working out what is going on and what to do next.
4. Seeing multiple perspectives: looking at a situation from different angles.
5. Resolving conflicts.
6. Firmness, confidence and assertiveness.
7. Problem-solving: choosing a helpful response for the situation.

Skills Manifestation during an episode of Bullying

Here we focus on the first strategy, emotion perception, and how it helps across the full cycle of bullying: before, during and after.

Before: You can’t always predict bullying, but recognizing emotions can help a child notice warning signs early: who is angry, and at whom, and what someone might really mean. Practicing with picture scenarios, social stories or video examples can make these cues clearer for an autistic child. Interpreting social situations helps children spot the kinds of behavior that often lead to bullying.

During: Being targeted brings up a flood of difficult emotions. Managing those feelings and moving away from the situation are the skills that keep a child safe. Emotion regulation helps with anger, and conflict-resolution skills can sometimes settle a disagreement fairly for both sides. Being firm and assertive in response to comments about appearance or ability can stop conflict from building. Combined with problem-solving skills, a child can choose a response that fits the situation, from simply saying “stop” to walking away and getting help from an adult. A pre-agreed plan, such as a help card or a safe person to go to, makes this much easier in the moment.

After: Bullying can leave lasting hurt. Any child’s emotional wellbeing can be badly affected, whether or not they have ASD, and feelings of exclusion can set in. Support afterwards should include follow-up so children can apply what they have learned to similar situations in future. Most importantly, the child needs to hear clearly that the bullying was not their fault.

Problem-solving, perspective taking and empathy all work together to help children feel more confident in social situations and build new friendships on their own terms. This supports their self-esteem. Emotion regulation helps them process past experiences and keep new encounters with peers positive.

Tips for Parents to Handle Bullying

Parents of children with Autism need to act at the first hint of bullying. Telling your child to “toughen up” or “man up” won’t help, and can stop them telling you next time. Here are some practical tips:

• Visit the school often, mainly as an observer (volunteer, or be there for another reason).
• Have regular, low-pressure conversations with your child. Ask questions like: Who do you sit with at lunch? Do your friends have special names for you? Why? Which friends do you talk to during the day? What’s your least favorite class? If talking is hard, try drawing, writing, a feelings scale or visual choices.
• Keep communication open with teachers and other adults who see how your child is doing at school, and ask them about your child’s interactions in class and at break times. Our home to school transitions masterclass shows you how to set up these home-to-school communication strategies from day one.
• Talk to the school about autism and about bullying. Ask what social and emotional learning program the school uses, and if there isn’t one, why not.
• Talk with teachers about your child’s specific strengths and challenges.
• Increase awareness among other staff, like playground supervisors, canteen staff and bus drivers. Share information about autism with them.
• Ask for bullying prevention to be included in your child’s Individual Education Plan (IEP) or personalized learning plan.
• If you need to, use the school’s formal complaint process. It is your right.
• Include social and communication goals in the IEP that your child agrees with, focused on their wellbeing rather than on looking like everyone else.
• Request self-advocacy goals in the IEP.
• Buddy your child up with a friend. Try to identify at least one good friend who can be with your child during less structured times like lunch, PE and recess.
• Ask for peer support to be written into the IEP if your child is finding it hard to make friends.
• Remind your child of their strengths and that they are, in no way, less than any other child. This helps protect their self-esteem.
• For cyberbullying, keep screenshots and report serious online abuse to the eSafety Commissioner.

What If My Autistic Child Is Bullying Others?

Sometimes an autistic child copies behavior they have experienced, misreads a game or lashes out when overwhelmed. Treat it as communication: work out what happened and why, explain the impact clearly and calmly, use a social story about kind and unkind play, and agree a plan with the school. Consequences work best when they teach a skill.

In Summary

Bullying of autistic children is common, but it is not inevitable. The biggest changes come from the environment: a school culture that accepts difference, adults who notice and act, and peers who know how to step in. Alongside that, explicit, step-by-step teaching of the social and emotional skills above can give children with ASD more tools to stay safe and to speak up. If you are weighing up a change of setting, our guide to autism schools explains what a supportive school looks like.

Support can be group-based or one-on-one, and it can be peer-mediated. Role-play, social stories and picture-based scenarios are useful ways to practice reading social situations and solving problems together.