Teacher perceptions of bullying and ASD (Plumb et al., 2022)

<p><strong>Purpose: </strong>The purpose of this study was to investigate teachers’ perceptions of bullying of students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and their views of the speech-language pathologist (SLP) as a source of support regarding bullying management.</p> <p><strong>Method:</strong> A web-based survey was created and distributed through e-mail and Facebook. One hundred twenty-six general and special education teachers completed the survey. The majority of teachers indicated teaching elementary grades (<em>n</em> = 81, 64%). The remainder indicated teaching middle school, high school, or specialized school. The teachers’ experience ranged from less than 1 year to greater than 10 years. All teachers reported teaching at least one student with ASD within the past 5 years.</p> <p><strong>Results: </strong>The majority of participants acknowledged bullying of children with ASD as a problem and witnessed bullying at their schools. Teachers were least likely to select SLPs as school professionals who could play a valuable role in the management of bullying.</p> <p><strong>Conclusions:</strong> SLPs’ training in social communication places them in a unique position to contribute to bullying management. School-based SLPs should therefore educate school personnel on the unique and necessary role they can play to help foster a safe and inclusive school culture for students with disabilities, including those with ASD.</p> <p><strong>Supplemental Material S1.</strong> Collaborative flyer for teachers. </p> <p>Plumb, A. M., Moates, A. E., Piazza, L. I., & Mauldin, E. O. (2022). Bullying and autism spectrum disorder: Teacher perspectives and the role of the speech-language pathologist. <em>Perspectives of the ASHA Special Interest Groups</em>. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1044/2022_PERSP-22-00046</p>