Child abuse, and how systems of care ought to approach it, is a tangled subject. When autism enters the picture, those tangles turn into knots. Yet, the statistics regarding the experience of abuse among autistic youth (and adults) are remarkable.

A study of adult women retrospectively reflecting on childhood experiences brought forth an alarming coincidence between autism traits and adverse childhood experiences. In a sample of 1,077 individuals, among those with higher levels of autistic traits, 40 percent reported sexual abuse, 23 percent emotional or physical abuse, and 10 percent met the criteria for PTSD (Roberts et al., 2015).

Further, research examining records from social agencies found that children diagnosed with autism are at approximately twice the risk of having cases of indicated child abuse compared to their typically developing peers (McDonnell et al., 2019). The study found that those without an intellectual disability were more likely to weather physical abuse, and those with an intellectual disability, in addition to autism, were also more likely to be neglected.

According to the study, "tantrums," aggression, and hyperactivity were found to correlate with abuse in both populations, yet it's tricky to determine the exact relationship. When youth experience abuse or otherwise have unmet needs or are experiencing violence, they often act out in response.

Another study in Tennessee found that more than twice as many reports were made for abuse of autistic youth than neurotypicals, yet those reports were a third less likely to lead to further investigation of abuse for families involving autistic youth (Fisher et al.,........

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