Inclusive and Supportive Education Congress International Special Education Conference Inclusion: Celebrating Diversity? 1st - 4th August 2005. Glasgow, Scotland

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Ending the silence
Adolescents with developmental disabilities as victims of crimes

Prof Shunit Reiter
Faculty of Education, University of Haifa, Israel
shunitr@construct.haifa.ac.il

&

Prof. Diane, N. Bryen
Institute on Disabilities
Temple University, Philadelphia, USA,

&

 Ifat Shachar & Noam Lapidot
Faculty of Education, University of Haifa, Israel

ABSTRACT

Crimes against people with disabilities continue to remain largely invisible despite estimates that suggest that crimes against them are higher than against those without disabilities. The situation in Israel regarding offenders and crimes against people with disabilities is similar to that found elsewhere: there is a lack of awareness of the magnitude of the phenomena not only by the public but also by professionals such as teachers and social workers, as well as an unwillingness by the criminal justice system to take responsibility. Data regarding the size and scope of the problem is usually an extrapolation from surveys done in other areas.

The aim of the two studies reported in the present paper was to make an in depth inquiry into the size and scope of abuse among students with disabilities attending three special education schools in Israel as reported by the students themselves. Study I - Adolescents with developmental disabilities - borderline and mild intellectual disabilities, answered a questionnaire on abuse and were compared to similar age students without disabilities who answered the same questionnaire. Study II - Harassment and bullying among students with intellectual disabilities in two special education schools: The differences between bullies and victims in terms of social adjustment and social skills. Major findings indicate that there is a higher percentage among students with disabilities who are victims of abuse than is found in the regular population; most events take place within the close social milieu of the victim, neighbors, bus drivers of the special school bus, 'friends' of the person or friends of their family and even the family itself; incidences of sexual abuse are twice as much experienced by students with disabilities than by their peers in regular schools; mostly females are abused. Regarding the phenomena of bullying, the present research found that in the two special education schools studied the extent of the phenomena is not much different then found in regular education (49% out of the total population studied reported being harassed). The correlation found between being a bully and violent behavior, hyperactivity, and behavior problems calls for attention. Attention must also be given to finding that being a victim was correlated with emotional problems and interpersonal problems. On the whole no correlation were found between being a bully' a victim and both a victim and a bully on social skills. Conclusions are drawn regarding education and services for students with disabilities in the area of abuse and violence in and outside school.

Introduction

Crimes against people with disabilities is a problem similar to violence against women, child abuse, and elder abuse. However, crimes against people with disabilities continue to remain largely invisible despite estimates that suggest that crimes against them are higher than against those without disabilities (Bryen, et. al., 2003). Not only is there a higher incidence of victimization against children and adults with developmental disabilities, but crime victims among them are often unreported or are discredited when they are reported. Even when reported, prosecuted and convicted, offenders of crimes against people with developmental disabilities often receive a "lighter sentence" than offenders who commit crimes against those without disabilities (Bryen, 2002).

According to Petersilia (1998), a Professor of Criminology, in the 25 years of criminal justice research there has never been a topic so in need of research and policy attention as the topic of victims with developmental disabilities.

Below are just some of the data to support this need:

• Persons with developmental disabilities have a 4 to 10 times higher risk of becoming crime victims than do people without disabilities (Sobsey, 1994).
• Differences in victimization rates are most pronounced for the crimes of sexual assault (10.7 times as high) and robbery (12.7) times as high (Petersilia, 1998).
• There is also a high probability of repeat victimization, because over time those who victimize people with disabilities come to regard them as easy prey -- where crimes can be committed against them with little chance of detection or punishment.
• Children with any kind of disability are more than twice as likely as children without disabilities to be physically abused and almost twice as likely to be sexually abused (Petersilia, 1998).
• There are no data collection programs for crimes against persons with developmental disabilities as there are for other specialized populations through the Hate Crime Statistics Act (Sorensen, 1997).
• Persons with developmental disabilities appear to have heightened risks for victimization regardless of their living situation and offenders are often care givers (Mansell, Sobsey & Calder, 1992).
• Offenders seek victims with disabilities specifically because they are considered to be vulnerable and unable to seek help or report the crime (Lang & Frenzel, 1988).
• More than half of the crimes committed against victims with developmental disabilities are never reported to justice authorities, and when they are reported, they are often handled administratively rather than through criminal prosecution (Sobsey, 1994).
• When crimes are reported, there are lower rates of police follow-up, prosecution and convictions. When convictions do occur, sentences for crimes committed are lighter, particularly for sexual assault (Sobsey, 1994).
• The trauma suffered by victims with all types of disabilities is just as severe emotionally, psychologically. And socially as the trauma experienced by people without disabilities who survive crimes -- in fact the emotional trauma may be even more severe and long lasting    (Finkelhor, 1998, Marchant & Page, 1992, Westcott, 1993).
• Persons with developmental disabilities are assumed to have difficulty serving as credible witnesses in court, but the evidence does not support this stereotype (Perlman & Ericson, 1992).
• Existing crime prevention programs and victims service agencies have largely failed to acknowledge the high risk of victimization among persons with developmental disabilities or their special needs (Baladerian, 1991).

The situation in Israel regarding offenders and crimes against people with disabilities is similar to the above. There is a lack of awareness to the magnitude of the phenomena by professionals such as teachers and social workers, as well as an unwillingness by the criminal justice system to take responsibility. Data regarding the size and scope of the problem is usually an extrapolation from surveys done in other areas. For example, in one town in Israel, when doing a survey of children at risk, it was found that students attending special education schools were twice as much at risk for abuse than their peers in regular education. (Marom & Oziel, 2001). Apart from a lack of exact statistical data on the extant and scope of the problem, whatever data does exist, is second hand data, based on reports provided by 'others', parents, professionals and government officials.

The aim of the studies presented here was to make an in depth inquiry into the size and scope of abuse among students with disabilities attending three special education schools in Israel as reported by the students themselves.

Description of two studies on abuse of students attending special education schools.

Study I - Adolescents with developmental disabilities - borderline and mild intellectual disabilities, and their experiences of abuse compared to similar age students without disabilities (Shachar, 2005).

Study II - Harassment and bullying among students with intellectual disabilities in special education schools: The differences between bullies and victims in terms of social adjustment and social skills (Lapidot, 2005).

Study I - Research method

Sample population included: 50 secondary education students (ages: 12-21), attending a special education school for adolescents with mild intellectual disability and additional disabilities such as challenging behavior, cerebral palsy, severe learning disabilities. There were 25 girls and 25 boys who took part in the study and whose parents gave their consent. They were compared with a sample of 50 students attending regular schools (ages: 12-18) who lived in the same neighborhoods. They were approached by the researcher and volunteered to answer the questionnaire. There were more girls in this sample - 33 girls and 17 boys.

Research instrument - A questionnaire entitled: 'breaking the silence' (Bryen et al., 2003) was translated and adapted into Hebrew. It was especially designed for use with persons with physical disabilities but could be applied as is with our sample population.   The questionnaire covers three domains of abuse: physical, sexual and emotional. Each domain was subdivided into specific acts as follows: I. Physical abuse: Theft, threat of physical harm, physical attack, forged signature, refusing something essential for well being, forced to do unwanted acts that are nonsexual in nature; II. Sexual abuse: Unwanted sexual touch, threat of sexual assault or harm, forced to have sex, forced to touch someone sexually; III. Emotional abuse: Humiliation, social rejection.

Respondents were asked to indicate whether they were exposed to the abuse in question, if the answer was "Yes" they were asked to provide a short description of the event, indicate by whom it was done, the setting and the frequency of the abuse over time. Respondents were also asked whether they told someone about their experience, whether they filled an official complaint, to whom and what was done with his/her complaint.

The questionnaire was administered individually and if necessary, read aloud by the researcher and filled in for him/her. All respondents, whether in the special education school or in the regular school, were told that their answers will be strictly confidential, no names used in the final report.   However, they were told that if a serious crime against them was reported the researcher would be obliged to report it to the social welfare worker and in some cases to the police unless, of course, this course of action has already been taken.

The questionnaires were computed statistically in order to get data on the extant of the phenomena of abuse. Students' stories describing the event of abuse, who has done it and where gave us additional qualitative information that was most enlightening, demonstrating the essential differences between students with disabilities and regular education students. In the present paper we will focus on the statistical findings giving only general information regarding the outcomes of the qualitative part of the study.

Major findings

Significant differences were found between the students with disabilities and their peers regarding the number of incidences of abuse.

On all three domains, the physical, sexual and emotional students with disabilities generally exhibited higher cases of abuse than their peers in regular education as is shown in table number 1.

Table No. 1: Percentages of students who were exposed to abuse,

comparisons between special education and regular education respondents.

Table one

Frequency of victimization p ercentage of occurrence

*P<.05      **P<.01    ***p<.001

From table 1 it appears that only on one item - theft, more regular education students reported that someone stole something from them than did students with disabilities. On five out of nine items: being enforced to do something, refused something essential, sexual threat, unwanted sexual touch and humiliation, students with disabilities suffered statistically significantly more than their peers in regular schools. On the remaining items they show a tendency for higher incidence of abuse compared with their regular school peers.

Looking at each domain separately, we were interested to find out 'who' was the abuser, 'where' was it done and 'how often'.

The physical domain:

Who did it? While among regular school students most incidences of theft were done by other adolescents of similar age (73.1%) only a few pointed at a family member (3.8%) and the remaining (23.1%) reported that it was a stranger. Among students with disabilities the picture is very different: 57% - reported that theft was done by 'other kids' while 36% pointed at a family member and only 7% said it was a stranger. Differences were statistically significant (X = 6.36, p <.05).

Thus the picture for adolescents with disabilities is that most abuse is done by someone they know, even someone who is close to them.

Where? Here too we see a significant difference (X = 20.25, p<.001) between the two groups.

While most regular education students had something stolen from them in school (57.7%) and in a public place (30.8%), hardly any reported a theft occurred at home (3.8%) or, if they did not live at home, in a dormitory at a residential home (7.7%), among students with disabilities, only a few reported a theft in school (8.3%) or a public place (8.4%) and most said things were stolen from them either at home (50%) or, if they did not live at home, in the dormitory at a residential home (33.3%).

A similar finding was in the other areas though here we see a tendency rather than statistical significance: threats - regular students reported most threats being made in school (50.4%) and in the neighborhood (41.3%) and a few at home (8.3%), students with disabilities suffered physical threats   mostly in the neighborhood (66.7%) and only very few in school (4.8%) some at home (19%) and a few on the way to school on the special school bus (9.5%). On this last item none of the regular education students reported any special event on the but to and from school.

Actual physical attack was committed against regular students in school (37.5%) in the neighborhood (37.5%) and at home (25%), while special education students reported only a few incidences of actual physical attacks in school (10.5%) said they experienced it mostly in the neighborhood (57.9%) and at home (31.6%).

Forced to do something against one's will - students with disabilities reported that most events took place in the neighborhood (57.1%), at home (14.3%) and in public places (21.4%) and only very few were forced to do something against their will in school (7.1%). In this area a much higher percent among students with disabilities (28%) reported being forced to do something than was found among students in regular education (8%). This difference is even more pronounced in the area of 'refused something essential for well being' where none of the regular education students reported any such act while 14% among students with disabilities underwent such an experience and in all cases (100%) it was done at home. From the qualitative analysis it was found that they encountered situations of blackmail, where they were threatened that if they will not do as told they will be harmed.

How often? An overwhelming percent among students with disabilities suffered repeated abuse compared to it being a one time event. Repeated - thefts - 58.3%, threats - 95%, physical attack - 94.7%, enforcement - 92.8%, refused something essential - 85.7%. Non disabled students, on the other hand, were less exposed to repeated abuse. On thefts - 42.3% had a repeated experience, threats - 58.3%, physical attack - 56.2%, enforcement - 75%, refused something essential - 0.

The second domain covered sexual harassment and abuse.

Looking at the total sample, female students were found to be much more exposed to sexual harassment and abuse than male students - of the total number of students (N = 100), 41.4% among the females were abused compared to 11.9% only among the males. Though it should be noted that on physical abuse the percentage of male students abused was higher (47.6%) than female students (25.9%).

Comparing students with and without disabilities, as seen in Table 1, there is a significant difference between them in this domain: 40% among students with disabilities reported having experienced sexual harassment compared to 16% among students without disabilities. This finding might be skewed in light of the fact that the non disabled sample had relatively more girls than boys, thus the differences between the two groups can even by more negative for the special education population.

Sexual harassment was experienced by 40% among students with disabilities (males, N=3; females, N=17), compared with 18% among regular school students (males, N=2; females, N=7). Unwanted sexual touch was reported by 38% of the students with disabilities (males, N=7, females, N=12) compared with 18% among regular education students (males, N=2; females, N=7). We see here that male students with disabilities are much more exposed to abuse than regular school males. Students with disabilities are at higher risk of   being forced to touch someone sexually - 14% (N=7) compare with only 4% (N=2) among regular education students.

Who was the abuser? Since a difference exists between males and females data is presented separately for each genre.

Among females, sexual harassment was experienced by non disabled students mostly by friends (57.1%), a few by service providers or others known to the victim (14.3%) and some by strangers (28.6%). The picture is different when listening to female students with disabilities. Abuse by friends was reported by 29.3% , by family - 5.9%. However, most cases of abuse were done by service providers or others known to the victim - in our population it was mainly the special bus driver (58.9%) and only very few by a stranger - 5.9%.  

For male students we see a different picture, among the disabled students only three (12%) reported sexual harassment, one was harassed by a family member, one by a service provider and one by a stranger. Among non disabled students, the overall number of abuse among boys was very low, only 2 kids reported abuse, one said he suffered harassment at home, the other one - 'by a stranger'.

Unwanted sexual touch was experienced by female students with disabilities mostly in their interactions with those around them: friends (41.7%), service providers or others known to them   (50%). Relatively few were abused by strangers (8.3%). Girls without disabilities reported more abuse by friends and at home - friends (71.4%), family (14.3%) and strangers (14.3%).

Male students with disabilities (N=7) reported being unwillingly touched by friends (28.6%), by family (14.3%), by service providers and/or others known to them (42.9%) and by strangers (14.3%). Among the non   disabled students (N=2) who reported unwanted sexual touch, one   experienced it by friends and one by strangers.

Where did the abuse occur?

Sexual harassment of female students without disabilities occurred in school (28.6), in the neighborhood (42.9) and only in few cases at home (14.3%) and in a public place (14.3%). This was not so for students with disabilities where no harassment was reported at school while most harassment was experienced in the neighborhood (47.1%), a few experienced harassment in public places (5.9%). A high percentage were harassed by the driver of the special school bus (14.3%). A similar picture emerges in the area of unwanted sexual touch where 41.7% among female students with disabilities were abused in their neighborhood, 25% in public places and 33.3% during the drive to and from school by the bus driver. Female non disabled students experienced unwanted sexual touch at school (28.6%) and in the neighborhood (42.9%) while a few had such an experience at home (14.3%) and in a public place (14.3%).

Among male students (N=7) who underwent the experience of being sexually abused, most had such an experience in the neighborhood (57.1%), a few in school (14.3%), at home (14.3%) and in a public place (14.3%). The very few non disabled male students (N=2) who reported that they experienced unwanted sexual touch one said it happened   in the neighborhood and the other one in public places.

Some students reported that they were forced to touch someone sexually - among the non disabled students it was mainly done by their peers (100%), among students with disabilities 57.1% were forced by other youngsters, 28.6% by adults known to them and 14.3% by service providers. Where was this done? Students without disabilities reported that all such experiences were done in the neighborhood, however   students with disabilities reported that 85,7% of the incidences occurred   in the neighborhood and 14.3% on the special school bus.  

Was the abuse a one time event? Here too we see a difference between the two sample populations - regarding harassment more students with disabilities (82.4%) experienced repeated abuse while among the non disabled students the percentage is lower (57.1%). Experiences of unwanted sexual touch occurred as a repeated event more often for female disabled students (50%) than for non disabled female students (28.6%).

The third domain investigated was humiliation and social rejection.

Fifty percent among the students with disabilities reported being humiliated and socially rejected while 30% among regular school students reported these experiences. In both cases the family was one place where students were humiliated - non disabled students (20%) and disabled students (24%). Friends and others - non disabled students (80%) and disabled students (75%).

The difference between the two populations was found in the place where the abuse occurred, while most students without disabilities underwent social rejection and humiliation in school, students with disabilities had such an experience at home (24%) and in the neighborhood (76%). Another difference was found in the number of times it occurred whether a one time event or a repeated incident. The non disabled student reported in nearly one half of the cases that it was a one time event (40%), same percentage reported that it was repeated (40%) and a few mentioned it was permanent (20%). On the other hand, most (70%) of   the students with disabilities reported that the humiliation and social rejection occurred on a regular basis.

What was the emotional effect on the victim? Are persons with disabilities less sensitive to abuse? The answer was negative, 74% among them reported that the abuse had a negative emotional effect on them, 30% said it had a physical effect and 8% mentioned that harm was done to their property. In comparison, 48% among non disabled students reported an emotional effect, 26% a physical effect and 12% - harm done to property.

To whom was the abuse reported?

On sexual abuse - students with disabilities tended to tell their families (66.7%) and professionals (33.3%) while students without disabilities in the majority of cases told their friends (66.7%) and fewer among them told their families (33.3%) while none told it to a professional.

Regarding physical abuse, there was one similarity between the two samples. The same percentage of students, 66.7% among the non disabled and 65.2% among the disabled reported the abuse at home to their families. However, 16.7% among the non disabled shared their experience with their peers while none did so among the students with disabilities. Another 16.7% among the non disabled students reported to a professional while a larger percentage among the disabled students did so (34.8%).

On the whole, apparently the fact that students with disabilities are considered helpless, weak, subdued by those around them, made them more susceptible to abuse than their non disabled peers. Thus the dynamics of the abuse were different, with the abuser known to the victim, usually from the neighborhood, or someone known to the family or a service provider like the special school bus driver. Furthermore, when abuse was reported by them, the very first reaction of the listener, whether family or a professional or the police was: you are telling a story, you lie, you blame people known to us as being good and friendly so you actually want to harm them, etc.

Summary and conclusions

The data gathered in our survey confirm findings by other studies, namely: There is a higher percentage among persons with disabilities who are victims of abuse than is found in the regular population; most events take place within the close social milieu of the victim, neighbors, bus drivers of the special school bus, 'friends' of the person or friends of their family and even the family itself; incidences of sexual abuse are twice as much experienced by students with disabilities than by students in regular schools of similar age; mostly females are abused; the special school seems to be a sheltered area, not many incidences of abuse were reported being committed there. In comparison, the school was not found to be a safe place for the non disabled respondents - all types of abuse were experienced within the boundaries of the school. Indeed, regular schools in Israel, like elsewhere in the western world, were found to have a high incidence of violence (Olweus, 1993, Rigby, 1996, Rolider et al., 2000).

Research on school violence make a distinction between abuse that is an act considered a crime under the law and bullying. While acts of crime can happen between equal individuals, in bullying there is always an imbalance of power. Bullying is defined as an aggressive behavior in which a powerful and influential individual or group (the bullies) display consistently anti-social behavior that is intended directly at harming the less dominant individual (Olweus, 1993; rigby, 2002).

We were interested to find out to what extent the phenomenon of bullying exists in the special schools too, as it does in regular education, though the special school was found in our first study to be a 'safe place' when it comes to acts of crimes. Furthermore, we were interested to see whether if bullying does exist, it has any correlation with personality variables and levels of social adjustment of students with disabilities as is usually the finding regarding regular populations.

Study II - Research method

Population

The research sample comprised the total population of two special education schools -   186 students (56.5% boys, 26.3% girls) between the ages of 12 - 21 with mild developmental and intellectual disabilities.

Research tools

Bullying is defined as verbal abuse of another and as a physical and emotional harassment. Three different types can be identifies, those who are direct victims of bullying, those who bully others, and those who are both a bully and a victim.

A Bullying Questionnaire (Olweus, 1991) was translated into Hebrew with the addition of several items from the questionnaire on 'Breaking the Silence' (Bryen et al., 2003) used in the previous research and which were found to be an expression not only of abuse but also of bullying.

This questionnaire was administered individually to students.

In order to get a more thorough and reliable picture of the level of bullying in school, teachers were also asked to evaluate each of their students and fill in a questionnaire on violent behavior. This questionnaire was adapted from the 'Teachers' report form' (Acheback & Edelbrock, 1986). The questionnaire includes items such as: shows violent behavior, is quarrelsome, brutal, impertinent, insolent, ill-tempered, aggressive, unruly, having temper tantrums.

In order to find out whether correlation existed between being either a bully or a victim, and challenging behavior, two other questionnaires were filled in by teachers on social behavior. 1. the 'Social skills rating system' questionnaire (Gresham & Elliott, 1990) and 2. the 'Self description questionnaire' (Goodman, 1997).   Social skills included interpersonal behaviors such as: knows how to introduce him/her self, shows self control, invites others to join in group activities, initiates social relationships, initiates discussions with peers, gives compliments, volunteers to help his peers in classroom activities, joins in a group's activities even without being invited. The self descriptive questionnaire tapped social adjustment competencies such as: being considerate of the feelings of others, is usually sad and unliked by his peers, is usually tense and irritate, is usually nice and helpful to children younger than himself. The social adjustment questionnaire had four scales: Hyperactivity, Challenging behavior, Interpersonal relations with peers, Emotional problems.

Major findings

Eighty three percent of the sample population from the two schools reported having undergone some kind of bullying as follows:

Was sworn at - 59%

Was laughed at - 52%

Was told nasty, rude, things -   46%

Was beaten - 34%

Was pushed - 34%

Was threatened to be harmed - 33%

Was kicked - 28%

Was pinched - 20%

Was forced to do thing I did not want to - 19%

Was sexually touched without my consent - 18%

Got stolen - 18%

In order to check for possible correlation between being a bully, a victim or both, we identified only those in each category that scored highest and were found within the 30% of their category. A total of 92 students were thus identified, among them - 50% were bullies, 31.5% were both bullies and victims and 18.5% were victims.   There were more males in this group (N=92) than female students, 75% versus 25% respectively.

The literature on bullying makes personality distinctions between the bully and the victim. They bully is portrayed as being big and strong relative to his peers, emotionally aroused when playing, engaged in sports, is argumentative. The bully exhibits a need for dominance, for being assertive, having control by applying force, demanding the fulfillment of his/her desires at any cost, show violent temper and an inability to exercise self control being impulsive and non conformist. Most bullies show no remorse for hurting others and take no responsibility over their actions. They are usually the underachievers, though they exhibit positive self image and enjoy, at least in the early years of school, high status (Olweus, 1987, 1991, 1993; Stephenson & Smith, 1989; Batsche & Knoff, 1994; McMaster et al., 1997).

The victim, on the other hand is portrayed as being physically week, not good at sports, do not have good body coordination. He/she exhibits low self esteem, as if saying "I deserve being a victim". Victims were often found to have low IQ, and to come from low socio economic background (Roland, 1989; Stephenson & smith, 1989). They are usually passive, anxious, with low self confidence, cautious, sensitive and quiet. They are not provocative, aggressive or assertive (Olweus,1991).

The third group which is identified as being both a bully and a victim, exhibit still other typical features. They are described as having a hot temper, being hyperactive, restless, having attention deficits, being emotionally immature, clumsy (Rigby, 1996). They are usually provocative and when under attack, respond with violence, which in turn, brings upon them more attacks (Besag, 1989). This group is the least liked in school being not popular and show very low academic achievements and show low social adjustment (Craig & Pepler, 1995a).

This typology seem to have a lot of common sense. Indeed, some of the personality attributes are expressed in actual behavior according to which we identify a person as being either a bully or a victim. For this reason we were interested to find out whether this typology will be found among students attending special education schools too.

Bulling was indeed found to be significantly correlated (r.=321, p.<01) with teachers' assessment of the student as being violent.

We then continued to compare the three sub groups of students: those who were identified as being 'a bully', 'a victim' or 'a bully and victim' on the scores given by the teachers on the 'Social skills rating system'. Contrary to our hypothesis, no significant difference was found on social skills and being either a bully or a victim or both. Thus, having social skills for interpersonal relations such as knowing how to introduce myself, helpful to others, self control etc. was not typical of any of the three categories of bullying, being a victim or being both. No significant correlation were found between any of the items on the social skills questionnaire and the three sub groups of students.

We continued to check for possible differences between social adjustment and being a bully or a victim or both. Significant correlation were found on all four scales: being a bully was significantly correlated with being hyperactive (r=.255, p<.01); and with exhibiting behavior problems (r=.259, p<.01). Being a victim was significantly correlated with having emotional problems (r=293, p<.01) and with having problems in interpersonal relations (r=.203, p<.05).

When comparing the three subgroups of students: bullies, victims and being both a bully and a victim, significant differences were found only on one scale, that of behavior problems (F(2,89)=8.278, p<.001); on the other variables of hyperactivity, interpersonal relations and emotional problems no significant differences were found. Thus the only difference found between being a bully, a victim and both was exhibited on challenging behaviors such as: having temper tantrums, being unruly, quarrelsome, tends to lie, tends to steel. Bullies and being a bully and a victim exhibited significantly higher levels of challenging behaviors. Indeed, as shown above, there were significant correlation between being a bully and being hyperactive and having behavior problems. However having emotional problems, though was significantly correlated with being a victim, was not found to affect a difference between groups when all three subgroups were compared. This finding is in line with our previous finding that no correlation was found between social skills and either one of the three subgroups.

Summary and conclusions

Overall the phenomenon of bullying in regular schools in Israel is high, in a special report to the health minister it was reported that in grades 6 th and 7, it was found that 63.8% of the boys and 36.4% of the girls were involved in acts of bullying against other students at least once a year. A slightly higher percentage was found as victims, 68.7% among the boys and 53.2% among the girls said they were victims at least once a year. The phenomena of bullying gets lower in upper grades and in the 10 th grade 50.3% of the boys and 22.7% among the girls were involved in bullying. The present research found that in the two special education schools studied the extent of the phenomena (49% out of the total population studied reported being harassed) is not much different then found in regular education.

The finding that no differences were found between the three subgroups of being a bully, a victim or both on social skills raises several issues. It could be that the popular typology, even though it is based on surveys and research, is an oversimplification of the phenomena of violence in schools. Another explanation can be that as was shown in our first study, most students with disabilities undergo one kind or another of abuse, mostly out of school, - in their neighborhoods, by service providers such as the bus driver of the special school bus, and even at home - to a much higher degree than regular education students. Thus, we could say that to some extent nearly all students with disabilities are victims. At school, even those considered bullies are actually victims outside the school walls.

The correlation found between being a bully and violent behavior, hyperactivity, and behavior problems calls for attention. Intervention programs in these areas such as art therapy, physical activities, music etc. can contribute to lowering the level of bullying in the special school. On the other hand attention must be given to the fact that being a victim was correlated with emotional problems and interpersonal problems. One cannot know whether these were the result of or the reasons for, being a victim.

Discussion

The two research projects call for a reanalysis of our education and therapy programs that deal with issues concerning abuse and violence.

We found that though abuse is usually felt outside school, bullying does exist and affects students within special schools too.

The overall picture of the high incidence of abuse and harassment among students with special needs calls for action. First, more research should be conducted in this area. It is a difficult field for study since the issues under investigation are private, painful and unlike any other research, the researcher cannot be neutral and must take action when crimes or severe abuse is reported. Thus, there are ethical issues that must be addressed when embarking on such a study. The other conclusion is that programs for persons, children and adults with disabilities must encourage them to 'open up' and disclose any experience of abuse. there should be formal and informal ways to deal with complaints. The whole staff, professionals and paraprofessionals as well as the support staff must be ready to listen and take action in this area. Apart from the program staff, there should be open and ongoing communication links with outside agents such social workers, the police, lawyers, medical doctors, psychologists and open communication with treatment program such as shelters for children at risk or for abused women, clinics that provide assistance in traumas and post traumatic reactions. The other conclusion is that preventive measures should be taken and all students with special needs should be prepared to fight back, be assertive and know how to reject the abuser. Actually, at times the very first step is helping students become aware of the fact that they are abused, become aware of acts against them that are legally prohibited, learn behaviors that will assist them to push the aggressor away.

Finally, there should be a public campaign that uncovers the facts and bring to the surface the situation. At the same time, the new image of disability as basically a human condition and changing negative public attitudes to disability must be done. More accessibility, physical, technical and social will help to lower the level and extent of abuse.

References

Achenbach, T.M., & Edelbrock, C. (1986). Manual For The Teacher’s Report FormandTeacher Version of Child Behavior Profile, Burlington, VT: University of Vermont Department of Psychology.

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