Does anyone else feel all these anti-bullying policies are no more than words on paper?

There seem to be two types of bullying here: conventionally defined bullying with one or several agresssors, and collective bullying with the whole of his class or peer group turning against him.

Schools seem to have a mental block over bullying in respect of children on the autistic spectrum. If you are not socially competent you are likely to get ostracised by your peers for being different.

If this is where your son was placed in the context of autistic spectrum diagnosis, then the school has failed in its responsibilities by not recognising a special need.

Bullying by an aggressive individual could also be because a child on the spectrum is vulnerable and unable to cope with this kind of aggression.

Schools tend to take the stance that the victim should toughen up, or if there is collective bullying, the victim is at fault and should change their ways - that shouldn't be applied to any victim let alone someone on the autistic spectrum.

If the aggressive individual is taunting your son outside your home that amounts to stalking. Every time it happens phone the police and insist on getting an incident number (date and reference number). The police may provaricate but they cannot refuse. Keep a record of the incident reported and the incident number. The police are supposed to act after three related incident numbers. They'll try to avoid it, but significantly more than three and it starts to affect their crime figures.

There is a useful book around "Asperger Syndrome and bullying - Strategies and Solutions" by Nick Dubin (Jessica Kingsley Publishers 2007 ISBN 978 1 84310 846 7). While having an American context it does explore a lot of the issues.

I myself was bullied right through school. I was big enough to take care of myself, but also entertaining by the way I reacted under stress, and pretty well useless once stressed - basically my peers worked out how to stage a meltdown. I survived, but the effects lingered for decades. The adage toughen up doesn't apply if your primary difficulties are social interaction and sensory overload.

Unfortunately schools and most anti-bullying charities do not seem to comprehend autism as a factor in bullying. Most people think of bullying as one or several aggressors stealing pocket money from kids while everyone else looks on but does nothing. Where the victims are autistic it is usually about their disability, and involves many more perpetrators, even if one bully stands out.

I wish I could get NAS to take more action with the anti-bullying charities

There seem to be two types of bullying here: conventionally defined bullying with one or several agresssors, and collective bullying with the whole of his class or peer group turning against him.

Schools seem to have a mental block over bullying in respect of children on the autistic spectrum. If you are not socially competent you are likely to get ostracised by your peers for being different.

If this is where your son was placed in the context of autistic spectrum diagnosis, then the school has failed in its responsibilities by not recognising a special need.

Bullying by an aggressive individual could also be because a child on the spectrum is vulnerable and unable to cope with this kind of aggression.

Schools tend to take the stance that the victim should toughen up, or if there is collective bullying, the victim is at fault and should change their ways - that shouldn't be applied to any victim let alone someone on the autistic spectrum.

If the aggressive individual is taunting your son outside your home that amounts to stalking. Every time it happens phone the police and insist on getting an incident number (date and reference number). The police may provaricate but they cannot refuse. Keep a record of the incident reported and the incident number. The police are supposed to act after three related incident numbers. They'll try to avoid it, but significantly more than three and it starts to affect their crime figures.

There is a useful book around "Asperger Syndrome and bullying - Strategies and Solutions" by Nick Dubin (Jessica Kingsley Publishers 2007 ISBN 978 1 84310 846 7). While having an American context it does explore a lot of the issues.

I myself was bullied right through school. I was big enough to take care of myself, but also entertaining by the way I reacted under stress, and pretty well useless once stressed - basically my peers worked out how to stage a meltdown. I survived, but the effects lingered for decades. The adage toughen up doesn't apply if your primary difficulties are social interaction and sensory overload.

Unfortunately schools and most anti-bullying charities do not seem to comprehend autism as a factor in bullying. Most people think of bullying as one or several aggressors stealing pocket money from kids while everyone else looks on but does nothing. Where the victims are autistic it is usually about their disability, and involves many more perpetrators, even if one bully stands out.

I wish I could get NAS to take more action with the anti-bullying charities