Asperger's and Bullying

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Hello,
Right now I am working in the Special Education dept. for a Minnesota school. Recently, a third grader that I work very closely with has been getting bullied for his inability to stop speaking on certain subjects and his outbursts in the classroom. He is aware that he has Asperger's and was never recently bullied until now. Can anyone please share tips and strategies that may have worked for you in the classroom? I think that having a paraprofessional with him all the time is really singling him out but at the same time it's necessary for his success in the classroom. Thank you!,
Trying to Help

From the perspective of a victim of bullying, there is depressingly little you can do. The structure of the educational system is such that it is inherently impossible to eradicate bullying. Even when I would stand up to the bullies, and report the incidents to the school administration, (at least at times when I wasn't being bullied by teachers as well - and, yes, that happened to me more than once; I was actively and publicly singled out for persecution by my third grade principal, in addition to various teachers throughout the years) and they took action, it did little good. I was simply blamed for whatever trouble my bullies got into, which made them hate me more.

And the more the bullies suspected there was a risk they might be punished for their actions, the harder they tried to set up situations where anything which happened was my fault. Since they had accomplices ready to hand, and I didn't, that wasn't hard. Or they waited until everyone's attention was directed elsewhere (often as the result of something an accomplice did for the specific purpose of diverting that attention) to do something to me. The harder they had to work to torment me, the nastier it got.

As long as the system forces groups of kids together, the ones who don't fit in are going to be bullied, and going to suffer. In other primate species, the ones who don't fit in are pelted with turds or rocks until they leave the group. When the victim is prevented from fleeing the group, those primate instincts will continue to make them the victims of persecution.

(I'm not trying to beat up on you - your desire to help is commendable. My point is that it is the dynamic built into the system which makes bullying inescapable.)

Well if there is an aide type person is with the child at all times....how is this bullying even allowed to take place? I mean it seems from what you say the only real action that can be taken is maybe educating the students about students with disabilities and promoting understanding rather than picking on.......other then that maybe the kids doing the bullying need some consequences for their actions.

What does the paraprofessional do if she/he witnesses the bullying? Is the teacher aware of the problem...I don't really know what exactly can be done even punishing kids for bullying doesn't nessisarily 'help' the over-all situation but the responsibiltity to stop the bullying cannot very well be placed on the victim of it....from the sound of it they have no real way to stop from getting bullied aside from not being in need of special education. Trust me the utter lack of solutions and options does make me very angry, I dealt with a lot of bullying myself and yeah a lot of times the school is not set up in such a way to eliminate that sort of behavior....I even experianced teachers singling me out when I tried taking action against bullying like telling the teacher about it only be be accused of exageratting or trying to get people in trouble so I stopped that kind of early on.....just tried ignoring it or pushing the hurt feelings deep inside and focusing on school to get it over with and get away from all that but that only damaged me in the long run.

I hope I was clear on one point: the lack of options to protect the victims of bullying infuriates me. I certainly don't mean to suggest that it is right to leave someone to be bullied. I simply don't see any way to stop it as long as the system remains set up the way it is.

There were times when I had teachers "keeping an eye on me" at all times - to protect me, in those specific cases. And that just caused the bullies to wait either until the teacher was distracted - there are always moments, since no one was perfect - or to devise ways to get at me once I left school. There were times the bullies were punished, and that just made them angrier with me, since I clearly "deserved" what they'd been doing, so it was my fault they were in trouble.

And then there were the times when the teachers joined in. I was born with crossed eyes and very poor vision (by third grade, they figured out I was legally blind) - but my second grade teacher openly, in front of the class, accused me of lying when I said I couldn't read books at a "normal" distance or see the board, and punished me for "lying". My third grade principal, who was her best friend, blamed me for an incident I had nothing to do with (believe me, if I had, I'd be proud of it - I considered any trouble I caused in that school a righteous blow against tyranny) and, in front of the entire school, stated that I was a liar and spanked me in as humiliating a manner as she could think of. Then she called my parents, with the result that they also punished me for "lying".

I would give ten years of my life to find a cure for bullying. Heck, maybe twenty, in spite of the fact I'm old enough that might kill me on the spot. :/ (The superintendent of the school system in the Phoebe Prince case was a physics teacher at my high school - a fact I discovered when I thought I detected a very familiar stink of bovine manure in the quotes attributed to him and looked up his name, then his photo when the name proved familiar. Just a mention of Phoebe Prince is enough to get me foaming at the mouth.) I just don't think, the way the system is set up now, it is possible to stop it all. Sure, it can and should be kept to a minimum. At the very least, teachers who take part, or even aid and abet, should be immediately fired and banned from ever teaching anywhere ever again - and if the teacher's union objects, it should be disbanded. But nothing really works to stop it, not the way the system is set up. Primates will fling turds at those different from them - the only solution for the victims is to run away, and as long as the system forcibly prevents that, they will suffer. Which is precisely why I hate the system which exists.

ETA: Sorry for the rant. This just touches too many places that are still too sore, even thirty and forty years later.

Alex posted a video about this. I don't know if you saw it or not.

How to Stop Teasing and Bullying

There's also a documentary that just came out on CNN addressing the issue. I believe the next airing is on Sunday March 3rd on CNN at 8 PM eastern time.

Here's the official site: The Bully Project

and here's the AC360 version: Tonight on AC360

I hear you on that, I would agree there simply is not much one can do to stop it in this society unfortunatly...I mean the school system does nothing to discourage bullying type behavior really. A lot of times the kid who's a victim of that treatment ends up becoming like the school outcast/black sheep so then they get treated like 'the problem' and further singled out by teachers, students and maybe even other kids parents. I also had the whole issue of people doing things to get me in trouble when the teachers weren't paying attention so once the teacher did glance at me I was 'acting out' for no reason when they missed the part where the other kids said something to make fun of me, or maybe they poked me in the head or purposely did anything that would get a reaction out of me.


But yeah I agree forcing the victim to stay in the vicinity of the group bullying them, is quite damaging...some people say 'well its wrong to segregate kids based on their condition. ' But I am sure said individual would thrive much better in say a school that is more understanding about their struggles and designed to accommodate them.

I could quote every single sentence in this thread and second it, but this especially is a very good point. It's funny how jails segregate prisoners based on offense, gender and danger to others but to suggest it be done to young inmates...er students people shout in unison "kids need to learn to get along".

Let me shout it out: I DON'T NEED TO BE FORCED TO INTERACT WITH CRIMINALS (aka bullies)!

My sister is mentally disabled and we grew up in the middle of Chicago so when it came time for high school, they tried to put her in special ed with all the gang bangers.

This whole recurring statement of the primates flinging turds at the non-conformists until they leave really chills me - it makes me realize that their are certain inborn instincts are part of the human condition that may indeed take a LONG time to be eradicated. Such tendencies on a macro-scale have resulted in horrendous tragedies, e.g. Nazi Germany.

Lord knows that I had much more than my fair share of bullying, including the odd teacher participation. Which still kind of stymies me, surely you'd think that there were some teachers who were bullying victims years ago, and they could sympathize.

But about this whole primate parallel, OK, just because we see echoes of that behaviour in modern bullying and mobbing situations, doesn't mean it's something that's just or civilized. Considering that primates would also cheat on their mate, abandon their young prematurely, and be hostile towards chimps of a different colour or appearance i.e. racism, I'd hardly think of those as being justified under the banner of "it's just part of evolution" in our civilized society. So why can't bullying behaviours be seen as just as socially unacceptable, rather than reaffirming a bully's social status in the group.

I hope I made it very clear that I don't consider such behaviour just or civilised. (Since I was the one who stated that several times.) Nazi Germany, to me, is the archetype of injustice and barbarism. And although most primates don't sink to quite that level, I don't find their actions at all laudable.

Sadly, while I agree with you about what society should be, I'm discussing it as it as right now, and so far, the majority of people don't seem to care if "weridos" (their term, not mine) are bullied. If I had any way to convince them, believe me, I would. The same thought which chills you has always chilled me - even when I was very young, I instinctively felt the Nazis were a threat. When I imagined Hell as a child, they were all strutting around in those Nazi greatcoats with swastikas on them. That's still the stuff of my darkest nightmares.

If you have any suggestions for altering this attitude in society which I feel I could possibly contribute to, I'd gladly do so. But I've written letters to editors on topics like this when the news makes them relevant - and gained even more of a reputation as a "weirdo" than before as a result.

I find it somewhat ironic that people either don't want to believe they possibly evolved from less evolved primates, and might tends towards intelligent creation 'we were put here by god' or some go on about how much we've evolved as a species. Yet if a chimp in the wild is ostracized from it's 'group' that makes it acceptable behavior in society when we're supposedly so much more evolved than that? But it continues unchallenged hence the reason as we see in the terrible situation the OP describes the only real option that poor child probably has is to be put in a school for those with autism or other conditions that would be a more supportive environment provided it is a good school or its likely the bullying will continue. I may have survived public school, but I'd be doing more than surviving if it wasn't for being forced to go there and be subject to all the negative treatment.

So are humans really that evolved or civilized? I like to think the potential is there maybe though it is hard to continue believing that when there are more examples of the contrary.

I used to think that humans were nothing short of incredible: the shining star of evolution. Now, the more I learn the more I realize we are barely even out of the caves. I have seen so very few people who are able to break away from their conditioning it's frightening and I realize if humanity really is sentient and if so, what does sentience really mean?

Don't get me wrong, not at all, I didn't interpret your comments as being condoning of such horrendous behaviour being just or civilized; it was more of a call to rationality & decency on the part of society - clearly, there's some sort of unspoken norm of allowing that sort of barbarism to continue unchecked into modern interactions, and people complaining are just "weak" or "trouble" i.e. undesirable. And I'm also saying that they can't exonerate the behaviour just b/c our primate origins ingrained it in us (hence the other evils I mentioned that came as part of the "primate package", which we should not hold up as acceptable on an unspoken level).

And I can also see, sadly, why you'd get that response from the letters to editors, as it's not something that really "sells" to the population (which is more of a rebuke to the general population than to your article). To them, it's too idealistic and "out there". Unfortunately, the population will put a higher priority on using "weirdos" as a form of entertainment (laughing at them, not with them) i.e. gossip, ridicule, pushing their buttons etc, or punish them for not conforming, rather than showing enlightenment and accepting them for who they are. The autism civil rights proponent Rudy Simone said something like "Until humans evolve into an entire species of saints, there is only so much you can do to stem the tide of mistreatment and gossip due to being inherently different."

Hi.

I’m sorry to hear that the third grader you are working with having bully issues. I recall it being around that time that I started having major troubles with it too. I’d like to give some advice which comes from my own experiences that may help. I was the only student with Asperger’s Syndrome in a class that was never larger than fifty students. Be aware, though that the techniques I used resulted in my being a loner all the way through grade 12.

The fact that you are showing interest in helping this boy goes a long way. Having someone to talk to will help immensely in relieving the stress of dealing with bullies and the chances are, he is not going to find that among his peers. Because he is different, some of his peers always treat him poorly and few will want to interact with him. Although I was never able to properly fit in during elementary, middle or high school, there were certain techniques I had for working around this problem. This boy needs someone that he can really express himself to without worry, so that he can regroup himself before facing his classmates again. The fact that he is able to do that with you is, in and of itself, probably one of the most helpful things for getting through the school day.

Now the first thing you need to understand is that majority of the bullying “in the classroom” is not going on directly in the classroom. Kids can be smart; they don’t want to get in trouble themselves while they are raining misery upon their classmates. Still, some does occur here and I will start by addressing what I did to make things easier in this environment before moving to the larger problem areas. For me, my biggest protection method was probably being friendly with my teachers. I honestly started interacting with them because they were the only people I could count on for a friendly human interaction (as a result, in College I can now interact with my professors far easier than other undergrads). It was the best way I had to relieve the stress and when they couldn’t help me out, I was confident that I could at least trust them. They might also sometimes recognize who was causing me the most problems and separate us (having control over the seating makes that easy). Also, in middle school, I used the freedom to choose where I sat to move to the front of the room. Part of the reason for this was to be in the Teachers direct line of sight, where the opportunity for in class issues would fall to a minimum (although I have seen others with Asperger’s prefer the back of the room).

The next location I will discuss is the hallway. Basically, when I got to school, I’d get into the classroom as soon as possible. In the confusion of this time, with kids scrambling all over the place, exists the prime opportunity for troublesome classmates to cause issues. I personally never had anything done to my cubbies or lockers but I’ve read of other people on this site who have, if you think he can handle locks, consider giving him this option. Then there is the in line bullying, simple stuff. For example, there was a girl who would let everyone cut in front of her, except me, so that I would always be in the back of the line, where no one wants to be. I have never personally come up with a way to get around this type of garbage [Do not have the teacher place him at the front of the line; this would be like putting a huge bulls eye on his back].

The cafeteria is also a problem area. In my opinion, it was usually the worst part of the day in elementary, although it would have been a different story if I had to ride the bus then, too (although not only because of classmates, the place bombards the senses). The lunch monitors cannot watch every student at every second all the students are forced to sit in their group of classmates. It is basically the free for all for bullies. In middle school I sat away from my classmates and actually ate lunch in the art room for a while. Perhaps removing him from this environment altogether is the best way to approach this particular part of his day.

Now, as cliché as it seems, gym is a very good environment for the bullies. When there’s teams involved, students choose their teammates by popularity and exclude the students they like least as often as possible, occasionally ‘accidentally’ tripping them. In times where we can work separately, like in Gymnastics I basically stayed on my own. Also, there was always room for snide comments in between. Again, making sure that the teacher knew me helped.

You get many issues like those in Gym on the playground. The difference here is that he can actually walk away from the situation. For me, it eventually got to the point where I just played by myself. This doesn’t mean they always left me alone (if twenty of the boys on a playground are following one or two girls, it is NOT just a silly game. Something is up).

I hope the information above can be used to help him some. The bullying will never stop but if he can come up with avoidance and coping methods, he should be able to get through the worst of it. I was able to control my emotions around my classmates most of the time simply because I could relieve the stress by talking to people like my teacher, my guidance counselor, the special education teachers and my parents at home. Simply by being there, you make things easier for this kid. If you can come up with anything to make the rest of the day easier for him, all power to you.

By the way, if you would like to talk about other in school issues that the student may have, feel free to leave a message in my inbox. Also, I have several made several comments on school related issues that you can look at by clicking on my posts