Recorded talks and popular articles

2023

Webinar: Belonging in School: Resource Introduction Webinar

The free Belonging in School resource offers tools that schools and educators can use to revise or develop policies for educational inclusion, particularly as they pertain to learners with neurodevelopmental differences. This webinar is a free, 40-minute introduction to the resource and its key ideas. Get an overview of what the resource is about and who it is for, plus a quick tour of the action cycle and four planning approaches. This video can give you or your school/organisation an idea of what to expect in the documents—but doesn’t go into all the details. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHY_S8fFC3E (40 minutes)

Talk: "LEANS Champions: A pilot programme to train neurodiversity educator-experts across nations and professional roles", BERA conference Sept 14

A talk from Dr Alyssa Alcorn about the LEANS Champions "ambassadors", and what our team learned from our pilot version of the Champions training course late in 2022. A shorter version of this talk was presented live at the British Educational Research Association (BERA) conference in Birmingham, September 2023. This version was recorded in November 2023.

Video via BERA website, free (30 min)

Talk: UCD College of Health and Agricultural Sciences Neurodiversity Masterclass seminar, June 22nd

In this talk, LEANS Research and Impact Lead Dr Alyssa Alcorn gave an overview of the LEANS resources and their development. The second part of the talk steps back to reflect on lessons from LEANS about neurodiversity teaching and learning in general, which may be useful to others developing neurodiversity resources. 

Video: recorded online talk via YouTube (1 hour)

Talk: "Learning and teaching about neurodiversity at school - Sustainably and over time", ITAKOM conference, March

Recording of an in-person talk as part of the It Takes All Kinds of Minds interdisciplinary neurodiversity conference, giving an account of the LEANS project and follow-on impact work with families and educators. 

https://youtu.be/-3HRrsHp2kg?feature=shared&t=39 

2022

Mini-talk:  “A school-based evaluation study of the LEANS programme”, Autism Europe Congress, October

A 3-minute lightning talk about the 2021 school-based evaluation study of the LEANS programme. These recorded talks were part of poster presentations at the Autism Europe Congress in Krakow.

Video via YouTube (3 min)

Event recording: Facebook Live Q&A with Charlene Tait (Scottish Autism), August 31st

An informal half-hour chat about the LEANS programme for schools, what’s coming up next, and how parents/carers can get involved.

Video - Q&A via Facebook (33 mins)

Talk: LEANS at the Autistica Research Festival, July

A short recorded talk from Dr Alyssa Alcorn presenting about the LEANS evaluation study from 2021. This talk and this conference were intended for a mixed audience of community members, researchers, and professionals. This talk is part of a larger recorded session on education, and begins at 14:09.

Video - talk via YouTube (13 mins - part of larger video)

Event recording: Learning About Neurodiversity at School (LEANS) public resource launch event, June 14th 

This is a video of the online resource information session for educators and community members, held as part of an official resource launch. Members of the LEANS resource and design teams explain what the resources are, how they might be used, and why you might want to teach about neurodiversity in the first place! Recording includes the extended audience Q&A, with even more information on using LEANS. 

Video - launch event via YouTube (1 hr 31 min) 

2021

Talk: Overview of the LEANS project, Dec 2021 

Lead LEANS researcher Dr Alyssa Alcorn gave an overview talk on the LEANS project so far (including a sneak peek of some evaluation study feedback) as part of the seminar series at the Centre for Research in Autism and Education, at the UCL Institute of Education.

Video - CRAE webinar series via YouTube (1 hr 1 min)

"Learning About Neurodiversity in School" nasen Connect magazine, July 2022 edition

This three-page article is written to be accessible for educators, and talks about why it can be so important to understand and teach about neurodiversity within primary schools, and why it’s whole-class teaching that has real potential for impact. It introduces the main ideas of the LEANS resources and research project, with some information about our 2021 evaluation study. Note: you may need to register for a free nasen membership to access this article. If you do, you will also be presented with a paid option for “publication membership”. That’s not needed to read the magazine online!

Magazine article - nasen Connect

LEANS on the National Autistic Society (NAS) website, June 16th, 2022

This short, free article is part of the National Autistic Society’s (NAS) content to support professional practice. It introduces LEANS for an autism practitioner audience, giving a compact overview of the free resource pack and the LEANS research project.

Online article - National Autistic Society

"SEND is where ed tech comes into its own", TES guide to edtech, 2018

Commentary on the potential benefits of educational technologies for learners with special educational needs.

https://www.tes.com/magazine/archive/send-where-ed-tech-comes-its-own (paywalled)