Cyberbullying and students with special needs

Information communications technology (ICT) has spread greatly in the last decade and brought along a widespread use of personal devices and the internet as a means to transfer data. ICT enables people with special needs an easier access to information and is considered a useful aid to interact socially in a more inclusive way. Not being only useful, negative aspects of technology are becoming more and more apparent in general public and in academic circles as well. Cyberbullying is a phenomenon, defined as repeated, intentional and aggressive act through ICT by an individual or a group towards an individual. Due to ICT features, the victim can experience negative impact from a one-time act repeatedly. Cyberbullying is considered a particularly vicious form of bullying that has resulted in instances of suicide by some of those who have been victimized. Despite that, some people still consider cyberbullying a normal part of growing up. The prevalence rates of cyberbullying vary across studies and we have come across only a few studies dealing with children with special needs. We have conducted an online survey, adapted for children with reading difficulties to describe different aspects of cyberbullying among pupils. Additional survey has been conducted with head persons of schools which the before mentioned participants attended. We have analysed data with the aid of SPSS application. We used chi-square test to discover if there is a relationship between sub-samples and a Kruskal-Wallis test to analyse pupils’ opinions. 196 pupils from three educational programs, attending 18 primary schools, have taken part in the survey. We have compared cyberbullying experience of pupils, who attend educational programs for children with special needs with those who attend the mainstream primary school program. Most pupils use computers or a smartphone to access the internet, with little or no adult supervision. With approx. one pupil out of ten being cyberbullied, no statistically significant differences were observed. Pupils believe that they know how to protect themselves from cyberbullying, about which they have mostly learned in school. There is an apparent low level of trust that teachers are competent to deal with cyberbullying. Although we have not found statistically significant association between the number of cyberbullied pupils and the presence of school prevention policy, we have observed that majority of schools still have not implemented acceptable use policies regarding ICT safety. Based on our findings, we have prepared recommendations for schools regarding cyberbullying prevention, so these institutions can become digitally safer communities. We have emphasized what schools need to consider when planning cyberbullying prevention to successfully include children with special needs