Autism and Abuse: How often does it happen?

Not only is this Autism Awareness Month---it's also Child Abuse Prevention Month. According to a 2005 University of Pennsylvania study cited in yesterday's Florida Times-Union:

Nearly one in five autistic children had been physically abused among a sample of 156 children with autism who had been taken to community health centers for treatment....... About one in six had been sexually abused.

Those proportions were slightly lower than children with other mental health-related conditions but still high enough to shock the study's lead author.

"This was very striking to us," said David Mandell, associate director for the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia's autism center. "I can understand people getting frustrated, but I find this behavior very inexcusable."

The 2005 study also laid bare the consequences of that abuse. The abused children were more likely to act out in sexual or abusive ways, attempt suicide or run into academic and conduct problems at school. Mandell said the research underscored the importance of vigilance on the part of therapists and doctors for signs of abuse.

The communication difficulties that many individuals on the spectrum have further complicate the situation. My own son does not have a lot of language and would not be able to use words to explain if anything like abuse happened. We can often tell that something is troubling him from his behaviors and actions and some of these made us aware of how physical restraints had been used on him in a previous school district.

The issue of staffing---of who is hired to teach and support children and individuals on the autism spectrum, and how they are trained and supervised---looms huge here. Physical restraints were used on my son because he was frustrated, upset, anxious to the breaking point----teachers and staff need to identify and address these before they reach that point, and focus on teaching other communication skills and strategies for self-calming. There are ways to perform crisis management techniques. Jim and I have had some basic training in these and it's just enough that I see how, used incorrectly by staff who aren't properly trained, these techniques can be wrongly, and excessively applied.

It's why being pro-active in teaching Charlie is fundamental. It should never get to the point that "abuse" should be talked of---and certainly there's been too much talk of this already (as you'll see by reading this, this, and this).