Understanding mental health challenges in autism and ADHD: A focus on schools as a source of emotional burden
Duration: 3 hrs 6 mins
Publication Date: 24 Feb 2026
Next Review Date: 24 Feb 2029
DOI: 10.13056/acamh.13824
Description
The aim of this event is to share insights and outputs from Regulating Emotions – Strengthening Adolescent Resilience (RE-STAR), a UKRI-funded research programme which is trying understand why young neurodivergent people are at elevated risk for mental health problems. The RE-STAR team will (i) present discoveries from the programme highlighting how upsetting experiences in school, and the emotional burden they create, can lead to poor mental health in neurodivergent young people and (ii) describe how this discovery has been translated into a preventative whole-school intervention: Place Positive.
Learning Objectives
1. What drives mental health struggles for many young people with ADHD and/or autism.
2. What helps autistic and ADHD young people manage everyday upsets.
3. A neurodiversity-informed approach to promoting mental health in schools.
Related Content Links
Participatory translational science of neurodivergence: model for attention-deficit/ hyperactivity disorder and autism research
Every child achieving and thriving
Situating emotion regulation in autism and ADHD through neurodivergent adolescents’ perspectives
Upsetting experiences in the lives of neurodivergent young people: A qualitative analysis of accounts of adolescents diagnosed with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and/or autism
Emotional burden in school as a source of mental health problems associated with ADHD and/or autism: Development and validation of a new co-produced self-report measure
Blog: Belonging, neurodivergence, and mental health
RE-Star Project
New national training to strengthen wellbeing and belonging in schools
Neurodiversity and Wellbeing in Schools Programme
