第二十屆 探討國小導師參與垂直轉銜服務降低自閉症類群障礙小一生接受融合教育的受凌風險 Bully Prevention for First Graders with Autistic Spectrum Disorder in Inclusive Education: The Effectiveness of Vertical Transitio

探討國小導師參與垂直轉銜服務降低自閉症類群障礙小一生接受融合教育的受凌風險

Bully Prevention for First Graders with Autistic Spectrum Disorder in Inclusive Education: The Effectiveness of Vertical Transition Services Involving Elementary School Teachers

呂信慧^1*

Lu, hsin-hui^1*

¹中山醫學大學心理學系

¹ Department of Psychology, Chung Shan Medical University, Taiwan

Background and Purpose: The children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) were at high likelihood for becoming victims of bullying. The rates of being bullied were higher for the junior high school students with ASD than for the elementary school students with ASD. However, according to the perspective of developmental psychopathology, the long-term negative impact in mental health was more serious for the elementary school students) than for the junior high school students with ASD. Therefore, it is the most important to prevent first graders with ASD from being bullied during inclusive education in elementary school. The present study investigated whether the likelihood of being bullied in first graders with ASD during inclusive education declines if they had received the transition service provided by their assigned first grade homeroom teacher before they entered elementary school. Methods: A total of 229 first graders with ASD were enrolled in this study (88.6% boys). The sample used secondary data from the Special Needs Education Longitudinal Study (SNELS) in 2011, a longitudinal research project managed by Academia Sinica in Taiwan. The data analyzed were from the questionnaires reported by the assigned first grade homeroom teachers (98.3% women) of the participants. The teachers were asked 1) if the participants had been bullied by other students, and 2) if they had taken the following steps before the participants entered the elementary school - “Records” (i.e., to gather participant’s previous records; coded 0 = no or 1 = yes), “Competence” (i.e., to evaluate participant’s competence; coded 0 = no or 1 = yes), “Literacy” (i.e., to improve oneself’s literacy in special education; coded 0 = no or 1 = yes), “Resources” (i.e., to search for school resources, for example, the auxiliary staff; coded 0 = no or 1 = yes), “Consulting” (i.e., to discuss with other teachers and professionals; coded 0 = no or 1 = yes), “Expectation” (i.e., to gather information about participants’ family background and parent expectations; coded 0 = no or 1 = yes), and “Participation” (i.e., to invite parent to participate in participants’ school activities; coded 0 = no or 1 = yes). These items were coded as category variables. In addition, sex (coded 0 = man or 1 = woman) and special education seniority (coded 0 = no or 1 = yes) of the homeroom teachers, “Encouraging” (i.e., to encourage the participants to play with other classmates; coded from 0 = never to 3 = frequently), and sex (coded 0 = boy or 1 = girl) of the participants were employed as control variables. “Encouraging” was a continuous variable, and the other variables were category variables. Results: According to the teachers’ reports, 60.7% of participants had been bullied at first grade in elementary school. The percentages of the transition services the first grade homeroom teachers took differed - “Records” (53.3%), “Competence” (25.8%), “Literacy” (50.2%), “Resources” (23.1%), “Consulting” (70.3%), “Expectation” (83.4%), and “Participation” (21.4%). A logistic regression analysis was conducted using the experience of having been bullied as the dependent variable. After the control variables were added in the model, the log of the odds of a participant being bullied was negatively related to “Records”. Conclusions: In summary, the first graders with ASD were at high likelihood for being bullied in elementary school. Moreover, the likelihood of being bullied in first grader with ASD were reduced during inclusive education, when their assigned first grade homeroom teachers had received more information about the participants’ previous learning or counseling condition. The implications of the findings in preventing first graders with ASD from being bullied were further discussed based on the ecological perspective.

Keywords: Autistic spectrum disorder, Bully, School psychology, Special Needs Education Longitudinal Study, Vertical transition