We are the Association for Child and Adolescent Mental Health or ACAMH for short. And this is ACAMH Learn. Hi. My name is Professor Mary Hanley. I'm a professor of developmental psychology here in the department of psychology at Durham University. I'm also one of the codirectors for the Centre for Neurodiversity and Development. And I'm the principal investigator for the Triple-A project. Hello. I'm Professor Debbie Riby. I'm a professor of developmental psychology also in the department of psychology at Durham University. And I'm also the codirector of the Centre for Neurodiversity and Development. And I'm the coinvestigator on the Triple-A project. Well, the first thing I should say is we really to say a little bit about what Triple-A is and what Triple-A is all about. Triple-A refers to a core set of needs and challenges that many autistic and neurodivergent children and young people experience in school. And they are to do with attention, sensory arousal, and anxiety. And we use the term Triple-A almost as a shorthand to connect those three core challenges around attention, sensory arousal, and anxiety. These needs, these Triple-A needs are something that we've been doing research on in the Centre for Neurodiversity and Development for many years now. And the Triple-A training and support package is very much based on that research evidence, on how these Triple-A issues play out at school for autistic and neurodivergent pupils. But one of the cores and focuses and emphasis of the Triple-A training package is around the school environment. So very often, when we're thinking about supporting individual children or young people's needs and challenges, we can focus in on those to the neglect of the environment. And when we're thinking about school environments, school environments tend to be very busy, unpredictable, multisensory spaces. And they can give rise to quite significant challenges, actually, for many autistic and neurodivergent children and young people because of those Triple-A needs. So I guess to summarise Triple-A is about using research evidence to understand this set of needs, but really understanding these needs in the context of the school environment. So who's the training package for? Well, the training package is really targeted at educators, school staff, classroom teachers, teaching assistants, what we call SENCOs, Special Education Needs Coordinators in schools, but also school leaders, so a whole range of school staff. And Triple-A is designed to be accessible, so no prerequisite knowledge is needed in order to do Triple-A training. It should be accessible to a really wide range of educational professionals. And it's also free. So it's really important to us that Triple-A is accessible, but equally, it can be accessed by anybody who wishes to use it. And we know that in the time since we launched Triple-A, which was March 2022, we've had over 9,000 people use it. And we know from the data that we've collected that about 85% of the people who use Triple-A are, in fact, educators, all different types of educational professionals. But equally, what that tells us is that it's not just being used by educational professionals. So again, we know from the data that we've collected that actually Triple-A is being accessed and used by a whole range of people, including parents and families who want to understand their child's needs at school. But equally, mental health professionals, clinical psychologists, psychiatrists, medics, occupational therapists, speech and language therapists. We know the Triple-A is being used by a really broad range of professionals, people who are all interested in understanding this set of needs and understanding these needs in relation to the school environment. First, Triple-A is underpinned by a whole programme of research. And that research is in the wider literature, but also research that we've been conducting in the Centre for Neurodiversity and Development over a number of years. We've got a whole programme of research that's especially focused around school experiences. And that includes research around anxiety, sensory arousal, and attention in the classroom and their relationship to learning and experiences at school for neurodivergent and autistic pupils and young people. So we've got that whole programme of research that we've been studying for a number of years. Some of that research was conducted in collaboration with a wide range of partners, but especially our partners at our local authority, so Durham County council and the communication and interaction team at Durham County Council. So we've worked with that team for a number of years in research studies that we've been conducting. And it was really through collaboration with that team and discussion of the research studies that we've been conducting that we saw that there was this need to translate the research into practise to be used by educational psychologists and anybody supporting autistic and neurodivergent learners at school. So it was with that team that we began the process of translating the research evidence from what we'd been conducting over a number of years, not only looking at attention, sensory arousal, and anxiety separately, but also seeing that more and more times when we studied them, they all came together and interacted with each other for these young people and their school and learning experiences. So it was that whole research programme and in collaboration with our collaborators beyond the academy at the Durham County Council communication and interaction team that we saw this necessity to begin the translational journey of having a practical resource that's, crucially, evidence-based that we could use and to support teachers and educators who are working with autistic and neurodivergent pupils. So we initiated the development process for the Triple-A training package in January 2021. And that was done with support from funding from a body called the ESRC impact acceleration account. So they gave us the funding we needed to translate that research to practise via the online training package. And I would say the fundamental overarching principle that guided the development process was collaboration and codesign. It was really important to us that the Triple-A training package wasn't something where academic researchers were sharing academic research expertise, that it was meaningful, that it was relevant, and that it reflected the real life experiences and expertise of all of the people involved in supporting autistic and neurodivergent pupils at school. So to that end, in terms of collaboration, I mean, Debbie has already mentioned, but the translation project was done in collaboration with our partners in Durham County Council, so within our local authority, and Liz Mulholland and her team in the communication and interaction team. So these are specialists, including educational psychologists and specialist advisory teachers, whose role it is to support kids in school with these challenges. So all of the Triple-A training package was developed in close collaboration with communication and interaction team. But it was also codesigned with a fantastic team of autistic young people, autistic adults, parents, teachers, SENCOs, and also another autism research academic. And as I said, it was really important that the training was relevant to all of those people who would use when it was developed. So along the development process, we also did two really important things which shaped what you see now in the Triple-A training tool. We did some focus group work with teachers and SENCOs to try and understand how to develop the training so that it was usable, that it fit the needs of teachers and cycles of the people who would use it most. And one of the really important things that came out of those focus groups was on the need for it to be self-paced and flexible. Teachers and educators are exceptionally busy easy. And finding large chunks of time, if you like, to put to training can be challenging in and around a really busy schedule. So one of the things we took from that was to make the training self-paced. You can log in and log out and pause and continue around your schedule and when it suits you best. And the other thing that was really important was the interview and qualitative work we did with autistic young people, which shaped the look and feel and emphasis, really, in focus within the training on experience. Young people shared with us the ways in which this training would be relevant and useful and reflective of their experience. And I think that was really important to making it something that was authentic and relatable for all the people who have come to use Triple-A. Such an important part of translating the research into practise and developing the Triple-A tool was the codevelopment of the tool. Mary's already mentioned our collaborations with Durham County Council, but also with teachers and parents and autistic young people who are so important to making sure that the tool that we developed would be meaningful and useful for all of the audiences that we wanted to reach. I really don't think that the tool would be as useful and have such a positive impact with its audience if it didn't embed those voices and those feelings and thoughts of autistic young people and their teachers. And throughout the training tool, there are clips that we have of young people talking about the issues that we've referred to in relation to anxiety, sensory arousal, and attention, and really putting into their own words their experiences of these issues at school. So that's really important to us. And actually, it's really important to all of the work that we do in the Centre for Neurodiversity and Development in Durham, where we work with community partners, with lived experiences of the issues that we're studying in our research to ensure that our projects, our research studies are relevant in the real world, that the research is meaningful, and that we have the right voices being heard. And we work in neurodiverse teams to bring together those different audiences and make sure that what we're doing is right for the communities who need that research the most. So it's really important to us to get the right balance between focusing on the research evidence and focusing on the practical tools that ensure that Triple-A can be used within the classroom and can be used by the teachers and those supporting autistic and neurodivergent pupils at school. That was why it was so important for us to have the collaborations that we have to pull together the research and the practical elements and bring together the different audiences in the co-production of the tool. But it's also really relevant to the way that we've structured the Triple-A toolbox and the Triple-A online training. So it's structured into three parts. The first part is really about psychoeducation around anxiety, sensory arousal, and attention. And this is from the broad literature and evidence to show how they relate to each other and, most importantly, how they might impact young people and learners within the school environment. The second part of the training tool focuses on our research largely, that pulls together these Triple-A issues and presents the research evidence from core research studies that we've conducted and published in this area, so ensuring that the research evidence is absolutely embedded within the tool. The third part presents the practical elements, the putting into practise part of Triple-A. And this is where users can download the toolbox of strategies and tools to use in the real world, in the classroom to support their learners. There are 35 different tools and practical strategies that can be used. And this is really important because teachers and any users can pick out those tools that are most relevant to the pupils that they're supporting, the learners and young people that they're working with. What we also really want to emphasise through the tool is that it's really important not just to go straight to those practical resources, but it's crucial to understand why they are relevant resources to use. And therefore, the research evidence and the wider literature, that evidence base all comes together to show why we want to focus on these issues and why these tools are useful. So it's really important that users understand that basis, have a clear evidence base, and then can apply that into practise with the last part of the training and the Triple-A toolbox. So Triple-A is something that we're always doing research on. And one thing that we've been really focused on since we launched the training is doing research to evaluate the impact of Triple-A. So, for example, the Triple-A training website collects data from users. And from that data, we can see that over 9,000 users have accessed Triple-A since we launched. About 85% of those have been educational professionals. But equally, a broad range of professionals have access Triple-A as well. And about 85% of users have come from within the UK. But equally, we've had users from all over the world. So we've had people use Triple-A training in America and Canada, in Australia and New Zealand, and in international schools in Argentina and Cambodia and Vietnam. And really, I think emphasising that the kinds of issues that the research highlights around Triple-A are relevant in a broad range of educational contexts. So one thing we've just finished up is research on and evaluation study of the impact of Triple-A. And for this, we had data from just over 1,800 users who gave us data before and after they've done the Triple-A training. And what we can see from that data is really positive evidence of impact from Triple-A, for example, in changing people's understanding of these issues and of significantly increasing their knowledge and confidence in supporting children and young people who have Triple-A needs at school. And really importantly, 86% of people saying that they would change what they do, they would change their practise on the basis of having done the training. So, for example, people saying things like they'll manage sensory stimulation in their classroom differently as a result of doing the training. But equally, people saying that they would just change their approach with a kind of a new understanding. So, for example, educational professionals saying, I had children showing some of these issues in my classroom, but I didn't understand what was behind them. I didn't understand that it might be sensory differences that contribute to the anxious or angry outbursts that they see in their classroom. So Triple-A, really helping them to see and understand children in their classrooms differently. We've also done some follow-up work with users over time. So with a smaller group of 100 people, we follow them up 6 to 12 months after they've completed the training to look at how they used Triple-A in practise. And here, for example, over 90% say it's been really helpful in practise, that it's helped them understand their pupils differently, and that it's been really helpful in their ability to provide support for those children and young people. So we've got lots of positive evidence of impact from the research that we have been doing on Triple-A since we launched the training. And there's more to come. So, for example, within the next few months, we're just finishing up a piece of research which has been done not on the impact of Triple-A with teachers and educators, but on the impact with autistic children and young people in school. So this is something that we're hopefully going to be able to share with everybody in 2026. We know that school can be a difficult environment, and school can be a difficult time for some autistic and neurodivergent learners for their ability to attend school and for their ability to learn and engage while at school. We think Triple-A can be a really useful resource here. It's a free and openly available training resource for all teachers and educators supporting neurodivergent pupils in school and in the classroom. It can have an important role within initial teacher training on neuroinclusive practises and in continued professional development for teachers, educators, anybody working with young people within the school environment. We need to also see more examples of best practise of what is working for neuroinclusive practises within education and within the classroom to support all learners to thrive. Those best practise examples will be really important for thinking about how to drive forward change within the system, which is so timely and so important, especially at the moment within the education system within the UK, but also so globally in providing neuroinclusive education. We hope that we can get to a stage where all pupils can thrive in school, that we have neuro inclusive provision that allows a neurodiverse pupil community to be able to learn, engage, and enjoy their school experiences. And having evidence of the best practise and best provision is really important to driving forward some of that neuroinclusive change. [AUDIO LOGO]