Bullying is aggressive behavior that involves the imbalance of strength among individuals. Bullying among people takes several forms: verbal bullying, physical bullying, cyberbullying, and intimidation that occurs through social exclusions. Children with learning disabilities can be exposed to various forms of bullying, and it becomes difficult to realize the form of bullying that happens to them. Responding and preventing bullying in the learning centers is highly prioritized as any form of bullying limits the child's performance. Kids with learning disabilities possess stigma based on their disability that makes them the primary targets for harassment (Rose et al., 2015). In inclusive surroundings such as schools, kids can lack protection against some bullies. Bullying is experienced by kids across every gender, age, and race. Also, among individuals, learning disabilities are internal, and they accompany people throughout their lives (Sampson, 2016). Students that possess learning disabilities have fewer friends and are victimized or bullied more than those without the learning challenges. Therefore, due to the increased cases of bullying in schools, this paper will focus on bullying among children with learning disorders.
The Larger Context of why Bullying Exists among Children with the Learning Disabilities
Children with developmental coordination disorder (DCD) are vulnerable to bullying in schools since they exhibit challenges in academic, self-care tasks, and extracurricular activities. Also, children with DCD have difficulties in carrying out the recreational and social activities, thus having greater chances of being isolated by their age mates (Rose, Espelage, Monda-Amaya, Shogren & Aragon, 2015). Kids with this disorder appear awkward and clumsy whenever they struggle with simple academic and self-care tasks that increase their vulnerability to victimization. For example, in the United States, parents that have kids with DCD complain about bullying in schools from their children's peers. Therefore, students that have learning disabilities have fewer friends, and they have challenges in remaining focused, thus being termed as impulsive, destructive, and emotionally immature.
Consequently, kids with specific language impairment (SLI) are vulnerable to bullying since they lack the social skills to negotiate with peers or join various peer groups. Students with SLI disorder have challenges in learning the spoken language despite having an average intelligence and various neurological issues. Also, children with SLI have problems with making complete sentences, getting new words, and understanding stories and multiple directions. The treatment of persons with a social disability depends on both attitude and the social environment rather than one's mental, physical, and emotional characteristics (Rose & Gage, 2017). Therefore, bullying amongst the students makes them feel depressed, thus affecting their performance.
Why the Topic of Study is Relevant
Bullying in schools has detrimental effects on students since it has behavioral and emotional problems that cause post-traumatic stress disorder. Also, bullying causes students to fail to form relationships with their peers, leading to celibacy (Hartley, Bauman, Nixon & Davis, 2015). Victimization among the students might persist towards adulthood, thus causing an individual to have suicidal thoughts. For example, in the United States, victimization in schools has increased the suicide rate, allowing the public to develop more awareness and attention to those with disabilities (Espelage, Rose & Polanin, 2016). Therefore, teachers and parents are encouraged to discourage kids from bullying, as it has psychological effects on the victims.
Bullies have an increased risk of abusing drugs and having criminal convictions. For example, among the boys who bully others during their youth stage, they end up being convicted for a crime in their mid-20s (Rigby, 2017). Also, the students that bully their peers have greater chances of possessing weapons, getting into fights, and obtaining poor grades in schools. In most cases, bullies in schools are kids that have improved social skills and possess a more extraordinary academic ability, thus causing them to conduct relational manipulations. Bullies are experts in integrating their facilitators in schools, making the teachers experience difficulties in identifying victimization among their students (Volk, Farrell, Franklin, Mularczyk & Provenzano, 2016). Therefore, since bullying has become has severe issues in the learning environment, students with learning disabilities have fear and feel insecure, thus affecting their performance.
Reasons why the Topic is Practical, Empirical and Theoretical Important
Bullying is experienced in most schools around the globe, and students experience challenges in explaining what they go through in school. Most students that are bullied in schools experience the behavioral and emotional difficulties that make them fear to go to school. Also, the victims develop a fear of expressing themselves due to loss of self-esteem. Research-based on bullying in schools allows the student to gain knowledge of the detrimental effects of victimization (Leland, 2015). Through various research on victimizing students with disabilities, children can learn the importance of supporting their peers in schools. For one to control bullying among the students, the teachers must take the initiative to explain to the children the harms of bullying and the importance of supporting others (Ansary, Elias, Greene & Green, 2015). Therefore, through this research, individuals can focus on the factors that lead to bullying among the students and try to mitigate the causes of victimization in schools.
