Communication Problems and School

Finding a Social Space for Folks with Asperger's Syndrome

"Merrie, I'd like to do my paper on kids with Asperger's Syndrome/dyslexia/stuttering and school. Is there anything on that?"

Every time I talk to Communication Science and Disorder classes, at least 3 or 4 students want to study interaction between children and adolescents with asperger's and their classmates. Honestly, it's been relatively easy to find remediation studies to increase kids' social skills or to look at social interactions in a reductionist way. But larger studies that look at how kids interact in school have been hard for me to find.

Then the other night, Nightline showed a program on Asperger's Syndrome, Bullying, and a school in New Jersey. The school teaches students what Asperger's is, gets them involved with each other and teaches them how to be friends with each other. It's "heaven" one of the kids with Asperger's says.

I tried to find articles about bullying, teasing and harrassing of kids with Asperger's. Though several make mention of it, as if it's well known and first-person narratives include it, I couldn't find studies of bullying per se. It's the terms "bullying" (in British writing) or "victimization" (in American writing) that help find these articles for us. Yay! And especially in PsycInfo! So, here is one search from PsycInfo:

(autism OR asperger*) AND (bullying OR victimization)

Try other searchers in ERIC, Lingustics and Language Behavior Abstracts, PubMed, and Education Full Text. They'll all show you something a bit different.

Books we have on Asperger's -- just search in the catalog using the second box. Change the dropdown menu to "Subject." Type in Asperger Look at all the possible subject heads there are. (You won't be able to link to the library catalog from here, though :(

23		Asperger's syndrome - [LC Authority Record]
2		Asperger's syndrome -- Case studies
1		Asperger's syndrome -- Congresses
1		Asperger's syndrome -- Education -- Great Britain
1		Asperger's syndrome -- Fiction
1		Asperger's syndrome -- Handbooks, manuals, etc
1		Asperger's syndrome -- Juvenile fiction
1		Asperger's syndrome -- Patients -- Care

4		Asperger's syndrome -- Patients -- Education
1		Asperger's syndrome -- Patients -- Education (Higher)
1		Asperger's syndrome -- Patients -- Education (Higher) -- United States
3		Asperger's syndrome -- Patients -- Family relationships
1		Asperger's syndrome -- Patients -- Life skills guides
1		Asperger's syndrome -- Patients -- Vocational guidance
2		Asperger's syndrome -- Popular works
1		Asperger's syndrome -- Social aspects
2		Asperger's syndrome -- Treatment