Bullying Adolescents With Intellectual Disability

Abstract

Bullying, despite its pervasive media coverage and many adverse effects, has been examined little in youth with intellectual disability (ID). We assessed the prevalence, chronicity, and severity of bullying of, and by, 46 adolescents with ID and 91 with typical cognitive development (TD). Measures of bullying at child age 13 were derived from separate semistructured interviews with mothers and adolescents, and victimization across middle childhood was based on mother questionnaire reports. Adolescents with ID were significantly more likely to report being bullied than their TD peers. However, the victimization of adolescents with ID was not reported to be more chronic or severe than that of TD adolescents. Although victimization decreased from middle childhood through early adolescence, trajectories of victimization did not differ based on disability status. Lower social skills emerged as the primary predictor of victimization; thus implications for intervening with social skills deficits seen in youth with ID are discussed.

Keywords:

• bullying
• victimization
• adolescents
• intellectual disabilities

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This particle was based on the activities of the Collaborative Family Study, supported by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, Grant 34879-1459 (Bruce L. Baker, Jan Blacher, and Keith Crnic Principal Investigators). We are indebted to our staff, doctoral students, and undergraduate interns for their help with family assessments and data coding.