“Regardless of what this study shows, in my experience children
with a disability who become bullies themselves are displaying behavior that hurts other people’s feelings. Often bullies are for- mer victims with the ‘I can’t take it anymore’ mentality — they hit a breaking point and fight back,” said Robinson. Tat very morning, she explained, a child began hitting another
student on his New York City school bus for no apparent reason. “When they lash out at the first person in their way, it may be
a manifestation of their disability. You need to be very careful about generalizing the ‘why,’” she added.
PROMOTING SAFETY ON THE SCHOOL BUS Kevin Jennings, former deputy administrator for the Department
of Education’s Safe and Drug-Free Schools, made observations sim- ilar to the University of Nebraska findings during a presentation at the 2010 NAPT Summit in Portland, Ore. In June 2011, the DOE and NAPT released two jointly created free training modules for school bus drivers to address school bus bullying. Since 2011, other training courses have emerged, such as the
Peaceful School Bus Program by Hazelden and Bullying Preven- tion by the School Bus Safety Company. Additionally, NAPT’s Special Needs Transportation Training program offers informa- tion on dealing with this type of student behavior.
“We train drivers to recognize what’s safe and what’s not,” Rob-
inson said. “We have to treat every issue on a bus as a safety issue. If an action of one student is putting the safety of anyone in danger, we look at the cause and see if it’s a manifestation of the disability.” NAPT’s Special Needs Committee Chair Sue Shutrump is super-
visor of occupational and physical therapy services for the Turnbull County (Ohio) Education Service Center and still provides therapy herself. Like Robinson, she has decades of experience in this field. She pointed out that special needs students can be perceived as bullies because they often lack control and “social niceties,” such as rating their tone of voice or maintaining eye contact. “I’ve seen kids who are very concrete and blatant, and some-
times their words are interpreted as being aggressive or negative when that wasn’t the way they meant it,” Shutrump said. Tis is why training is so important, she continued, especially if
transporters work with kids on the autism spectrum. Bus drivers and attendants need to know about students’ sensitivities. “We have kids who have touch-sensitivity problems. Even light
touch can almost be perceived as painful, so they may shout or have a fight-or-flight response,” she said, adding that drivers should alert their supervisors and the special-ed team if they think that a child is being bullied or causing another child concern. “Tey can call IEP meetings — often I don’t think they realize that.” ■
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