Quick Chat: ASD & Bullying

For thousands of children and parents, it’s back-to-school time, and along with the usual matters that inevitably arise —which backpack to buy and where to buy it, what to pick up for lunches, what’s in fashion and what’s not, whether the teacher and the student will be a good fit and what the class will look like—comes the spectre of the bully.

No parent wants to find out their child is the victim of bullying at school, and certainly no child is eager to be the target of intimidation or mistreatment by a classmate.

Adam McCrimmon thinks that some children may be more susceptible to bullying than others, and he’s hoping to understand why that’s the case and what, if anything, can be done to improve their situations.

McCrimmon, as Assistant Professor in the Werklund School of Education, studies children and young adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). McCrimmon is also a member of the Alberta Children’s Hospital Research Institute’s Owerko Centre for Neurodevelopment and Child Mental Health, part of the Brain and Mental Health research theme at the University of Calgary. He’s undertaken a research project to learn more about what some children with ASD who have been bullied—and others who haven’t--can teach him, in the hope that he can help those who find themselves targeted.

Audio:

• Quick Chat (4:31)