Supporting Neurodivergent Learners with Triple-A: Attention, Arousal & Anxiety at School
Zoom
Join us for our next webinar in our Driving School Success series. These webinars will provide accessible, high-quality CPD focused on effective operations and strategic decision-making to help schools and trusts thrive.
School environments (both primary and secondary) are busy, multisensory and unpredictable. Whether it is the hustle and bustle of lots of students in and outside of class, the walls of classrooms and corridors adorned with information displays or colourful artwork, or the smells from the canteen, toilets or changing rooms – there is so much going on at school that learners have to be able to cope with in order to be able to engage and learn. This presents unique challenges for autistic and neurodivergent learners, because this broad group of children and young people tend to have difficulties with attention, sensory arousal, and anxiety. Through our research, we argue that these three related difficulties, which we refer to as ‘Triple-A’, underpin many of the challenges that autistic and neurodivergent learners experience at school.
In this webinar, Mary and Debbie will give an overview of their research on these issues and how they have gone about translating this evidence to impact–mainly via their Triple-A online training for educators (www.tripleadurham.co.uk).
Triple-A is a co-produced training package (with non-academic and academic stakeholders, including autistic people) which provides evidence-based psychoeducation as well as a suite of practical support strategies. Since launching in 2022, Triple-A has reached over 9000 users, mostly in the UK (but also worldwide). The evidence of impact from Triple-A is positive in terms of changing understanding and practice of support, and it shows how this method of translating research to practice offers huge value in terms of promoting neuro-inclusive education.
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Event Overview

Professor Mary Hanley
Professor in Psychology, Co-Director of the Centre for Neurodiversity & Development, Durham University
Mary Hanley is a Professor of Developmental Psychology in the Department of Psychology at Durham University and co-Director of the Centre for Neurodiversity and Development. She is especially interested in how challenges with attention, sensory arousal and anxiety interact with each other and impact on engaging and learning at school. Over the last number of years, she has led the ‘Triple-A’ programme which is focused on translating research evidence to practice within education, to change practice and benefit neurodivergent children and young people. For this work, she received the British Psychological Society Development Section Award for Impact and Engagement in 2024.

Professor Debbie Riby
Professor in Psychology, Co-Director of the Centre for Neurodiversity & Development, Durham University
Deborah Riby is a Professor of Developmental Psychology at Durham University. She is co-Director of the Centre for Neurodiversity & Development. Debbie’s research focuses on neurodiversity and neurodivergence, especially in relation to cognition, behaviour, and education. Her research has taken a multi-methods approach to understanding facilitators, barriers, and lived experiences for neurodivergent pupils within mainstream schools. Debbie is an Elected Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences, an Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society, and a Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.
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