| Popis: |
A recent study using a general UK population sample (Chow et al., 2022) has identified five bullying trajectories from early childhood to adolescence: uninvolved children (the most common), early child victims, early adolescent victims, early child bullies, and bully-victims (the least common). To the best of our knowledge, no research to date has looked at the bullying trajectories from childhood to adolescence in autistic individuals. To close this research gap, we will look into the bullying trajectories that have been previously identified by Chow et al. (2022), on the general population, to explore the proportions of autistic adolescents in each of these trajectories. We will then look to see how these bullying trajectories are linked to mental health outcomes in autistic and non-autistic adolescents. Finally, we are also interested in exploring the role of social support and friendship in the associations between bullying trajectories and mental health in both autistic and non-autistic individuals. Therefore, the current study sets out three aims: (1) to test whether patterns of bullying involvement, victimisation and perpetration, from childhood to adolescence differ between autistic and non-autistic individuals, (2) to examine whether joint trajectories of bullying victimisation and perpetration from childhood to early adolescence predict mental health outcomes in late adolescence for autistic and non-autistic individuals, and (3) to explore whether social support and friendship moderate the associations between bullying trajectories and mental health in autistic and non-autistic individuals. |
