In Phoenix, Arizona two months ago, two neighborhood teens kidnapped an autistic boy, threatened to put him in a dog cage, recorded a video of the events, and posted it on Facebook. Around the same time in the United Kingdom, three teens who filmed themselves via a mobile phone viciously torturing a teen with Asperger's Syndrome under the pretext that they were his 'friends.' They "were given community service, victim awareness counselling and forced to wear curfew bands" under a government initiative based on claims that their guilty pleas were "remorseful" and that "they could be re-habilitated. The victim's family branded these actions a joke as the bullies were legally allowed to get away with what they had done.
A few weeks ago in the UK, a young man bullied for having Asperger's Syndrome fell 50 feet from a bridge while trying to escape his tormentors, leaving him paralyzed in his lower back. He "was due to start a course in electrical engineering and construction [that] week." At around the same time in Bay Village, Ohio, an autistic teen was duped by a group of teens into taking an Ice Bucket Challenge, which has been a recently popular fundraising activity meant to raise awareness of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a progressive neurological disease that is more commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease. Instead of ice water, they dumped a bucket filled with urine, spit, feces, and cigarette butts on him, filmed it using a mobile phone, and posted it on the Internet against the young man's wishes. Upon hearing news of this incident, celebrities Drew Carey and Jenny McCarthy offered a reward to identify the perpetrators, but the police said that it was not necessary as they have done just that. As of this writing, criminal charges against those bullies are yet to be pressed.
As if bullying by teenagers was not bad enough, there have been bullying on part of adults as well. Two years ago, a father of an autistic boy found out via a tape recorder that teachers at his school were bullying him. He has since launched a YouTube video in a campaign for better treatment of his son and other autistic children, which has reached about 5 million views.
Reading these accounts begs some questions: how many more autistic children, teenagers, and young adults have been bullied to this sort of cruel degree in the past? Are they ever reported to parents, school officials, and the police? How were the victims and there families coping with such bullying. Has anything been done on part of communities in America and other parts of the world to make sure these things never happen again? Or are these cases just merely items to report in the news, like this one from three years ago? As an autistic person, I am inclined to say this sort of bullying must be made aware of; the victims need help in getting their lives back together by these tragedies; the perpetrators of such bullying must be brought to justice regardless of age, status, or position. The first step in confronting the problem is to realize that autistic children and teenagers have difficulties expressing themselves, the severity of which depends on the spectrum. That makes them more susceptible to bullying than normal children and teenagers. The next and most crucial step is to encourage the victims, their families, and friends speak out so that action against bullying is possible. No one on the autism spectrum deserves to be treated with indignity, disrespect, and humiliation. I, for one, never deserved the insults I received in high school.
As if bullying by teenagers was not bad enough, there have been bullying on part of adults as well. Two years ago, a father of an autistic boy found out via a tape recorder that teachers at his school were bullying him. He has since launched a YouTube video in a campaign for better treatment of his son and other autistic children, which has reached about 5 million views.
Reading these accounts begs some questions: how many more autistic children, teenagers, and young adults have been bullied to this sort of cruel degree in the past? Are they ever reported to parents, school officials, and the police? How were the victims and there families coping with such bullying. Has anything been done on part of communities in America and other parts of the world to make sure these things never happen again? Or are these cases just merely items to report in the news, like this one from three years ago? As an autistic person, I am inclined to say this sort of bullying must be made aware of; the victims need help in getting their lives back together by these tragedies; the perpetrators of such bullying must be brought to justice regardless of age, status, or position. The first step in confronting the problem is to realize that autistic children and teenagers have difficulties expressing themselves, the severity of which depends on the spectrum. That makes them more susceptible to bullying than normal children and teenagers. The next and most crucial step is to encourage the victims, their families, and friends speak out so that action against bullying is possible. No one on the autism spectrum deserves to be treated with indignity, disrespect, and humiliation. I, for one, never deserved the insults I received in high school.
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