The Assessment of Bullying Experiences Questionnaire(ABE) for Neurodivergent Youth: Establishing Scoring Criteria and Clinical Thresholds

Neurodivergent youth, such as those with diagnoses of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) or attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), are frequently victimized by their peers. This bullying victimization may occur in unique ways that are not captured by existing questionnaires. The Assessment of Bullying Experiences (ABE)is a questionnaire specific to neurodivergent youth with acceptable psychometric properties in autistic and non-autistic samples. This study sought to establish scoring criteria and clinical cutoffs for the ABE. Participants were 335 parents of youth (ages 6–17) characterized as autistic, having ADHD, or from a community comparison sample. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analyses were used to (1) compare accuracy of the ABEtotal score in predicting bullying victimization experiences and (2) identify optimal questionnaire cutoffs. Clinical utility of these cutoffs was confirmed using ANCOVA analyses. The ABEhad good-to-excellent discrimination for bullying victimization across groups. Bullied youth had greater symptoms of anxiety/depression compared to youth who were not bullied; this relationship was partially explained by autism characteristics. ABEclinical cutoffs generated bullying victimization prevalence rates consistent with existing literature (50% autism, 28% non-autism). The ABEis a useful measure to streamline bullying victimization assessment in neurodivergent youth and inform group-specific intervention.