Elsevier

Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders

Volume 5, Issue 1, January–March 2011, Pages 317-323
Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders

Aggressive behavior in a sample of children with autism spectrum disorders

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rasd.2010.04.014Get rights and content

Abstract

Little is known about the manifestation of aggressive behavior in children with autism, although it is commonly cited as a significant problem. Existing reports in autism do not emphasize subtypes of aggression, whereas distinguishing forms of aggression is commonplace in the typically developing literature. This study compared a sample of 121 children aged 3–20 years with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) to 244 children with other intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD; age 4–21 years). Item- and subscale-level data from the Children's Scale for Hostility and Aggression: Reactive/Proactive (C-SHARP) were reported. Children with ASDs received higher ratings than those with IDD on several subscales tapping physical and reactive aggression. Within the ASD group, children with Asperger's disorder were rated significantly higher than children with autism on subscales tapping covert and verbal behaviors. Results indicate that at least some types of aggression were more common in children with ASDs than those with IDDs.

Section snippets

Barriers to aggression research in ASD

The limitations listed above in existing research likely stem, in part, from the low prevalence of ASD relative to other disorders such as ADHD, which makes population-based studies very difficult to perform (Aman & Farmer, in press). A second impediment is the lack of terminological consensus among researchers, which is common to the study of aggression in all fields. This reflects several facts about aggression: it is an emotionally charged term, and it involves social and moral judgment (

Prevalence data in ASD

The few studies of the prevalence of aggressive behavior in ASDs suggest that aggressive behavior is at least as common in children with ASD as in their peers with other IDDs, if not more so. In a study frequently cited as providing one of the first prevalence estimates of problem behavior in a sample with autism, Ando and Yoshimura (1979) presented data on 47 children with autism aged 6–14 years, compared with an ID group (n = 128). The teacher-endorsement rates for the autism group on the

Methods

This study was approved by the Behavioral and Social Sciences Institutional Review Board of our university.

Results

The ASD group had a significantly higher proportion of males than the IDD group (79.3% vs. 51.4%, respectively, p < 0.001). No other significant differences on demographic variables were observed. Group mean scores were subjected to t-tests. The ASD group had significantly higher scores than the IDD group on three subscales: Bullying [M(SD)ASD = 6.6(5.1) vs. M(SD)IDD = 4.2(5.6), p = 0.003], Hostility [M(SD)ASD = 7.2(5.3) vs. M(SD)IDD = 5.3(5.5), p = 0.003], and Physical Aggression [M(SD)ASD = 2.6(2.6) vs. M(SD)

Discussion

Consistent with the few available data, this study indicates that children with ASDs do engage in aggressive behaviors, and that they may indeed display higher rates of some behaviors than children with other disabilities. In this sample, the behaviors on the Bullying and Hostility subscales were of particular concern to raters. Bullying is not usually a behavior ascribed to children with ASDs, so it may be that many of the items represent a reaction to the environment (frustration, desire to

Author note

The data presented in this paper were collected as part of a Master's thesis (C.A.F.) at Ohio State University. The data are also reported upon in the C-SHARP development and psychometric publications, as indicated in the manuscript.

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