School Refusal by Professor Tony Attwood

There are many aspects of being at school that are challenging and stressful for children and adolescents who have autism. This can lead to school refusal, and a recent research study conducted in Norway has explored the risk of school refusal for students who have autism (Munkhaugen et al. 2017). The study, conducted over a 20 day period, included 216 primary and high school students of whom 78 had autism. The risk of school refusal for the children who had autism was 42.6 per cent, while the risk for typical children was only 7.1 per cent. The students with autism also displayed school refusal behaviour for a longer duration than their typical counterparts. Many expressions of school refusal were observed, including verbal and physical refusal, pleading, clinging, crying, noncompliance, verbal and physical aggression and threats. School refusal was equally common in girls and boys who had autism, and occurred equally often in primary and high school.

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