The internet can afford those with SEND an easier means of relating to their peers, and communication technologies can ‘act as a leveller’ (Cross et al., 2009, p.8) for those with disabilities. Kowalski and Fedina suggested that some with SEND might lack social skills and empathy, and be emotionally volatile. The possible increased inability to understand and develop relationships with others can lead to problems online as well as offline .
However, the researchers also stressed that SEND covers a broad spectrum and over generalisations should be avoided. For example, someone with autism may suffer from social skills but someone with a sensory impairment, such as being deaf or blind, or someone who has a physical disability, such as being in a wheelchair, might not suffer from difficulties in social skills in the same way This article considers the research relating to cyberbullies and cybervictims in the context of young people with SEND and in so doing raises challenging questions for educators
Research into bullying has predominantly focused on adolescents in mainstream education contexts, with little attention on education institutions catering for the needs of young people with SEND. The researchers conducted their research in a school catering for pupils with a range of SEND. The researchers focussed on pupils who were on the Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD). The researchers highlighted that relative deficits of those on the ASD, such as in developing normal social interactions and relationships as well as in understanding the behaviours of others, were reasons for being at higher risk of being bullied.
The researchers also highlighted reasons why those on the ASD were at a higher risk of bullying others, which included increased levels of aggressive behaviours and a limited insight in social processing, meaning that they may be bullying others without being aware of it. The researchers recognised that those on the ASD, and those with SEND generally, were not equally disabled in recognising bullying behaviours, and so this claim did not generally apply.
The researchers placed importance on whether those on the ASD could actually perceive whether they were bullies or victims. The researchers found that their teachers perceived higher levels of bullying victimisation and perpetration than their pupils. In terms of victimisation, teachers perceived bullying at a rate of 30% and pupils 17%, and in terms of bullying others, teachers perceived at a rate of 46% and pupils 19%. These findings show that pupils with ASD perceived being a victim of bullying and bullying others less than their teachers. However, there may be conceptual differences of what was meant by bullying between the teachers and the pupils, which the researcher did not report on.
Other research has ) highlighted that 38% of school children with disabilities were worried about being bullied, and were more likely to feel that ‘less bullying’ would improve their life than those without disabilities (25% and 18%, respectively). Bauman and Pero (2010) sampled 30 students aged 13–18 years who were either deaf or hard of hearing, and a further 22 students who were hearing students in the same age group. The researchers sought to establish whether or not deaf or hard of hearing students used technology to bully hearing students, especially if they had been the victims of bullying in the past. The findings showed that no deaf students had bullied hearing students. In fact, the researchers reported no statistically significant differences by hearing status for being a bully or cyberbully, or for being a victim of bullying or cyberbullying, but consideration should be given to the small sample size.
