Quick news round-up from the 2025-26 school year

Even though we’re not as active as in previous years, we are still out there talking about LEANS and wider issues around neurodiversity education and practice. Here’s a quick round-up from some activity in the past year:

•    Autism Europe Congress, Dublin, September 2025: Sue Fletcher-Watson delivered an invited keynote on "Neurodiversity: Liberation and Inclusion for all Autistics" that included dedicated content on educational contexts, and LEANS as an example of neurodiversity concepts in action. View this talk on YouTube! Also at this conference, Alyssa Alcorn co-organised a symposium on “Fostering neuroinclusivity in schools: the importance of knowledge, attitudes and Culture” with Jo Billington (Reading), Lorna Hamilton (York), and Anna Cook (Surrey). [not recorded]

•    International Society for Autism Research annual meeting, Prague, April 2026: Alyssa Alcorn presented a peer-reviewed poster with headline results from the 2025 LEANS use and impact survey (full publication in preparation).

•    Alyssa Alcorn delivered invited talks on neurodiversity and neurodiversity-affirming education at the National Educational Psychological Service Annual Conference, (Killarney, Ireland, March 2026) and the European Agency for Special Needs and Inclusive Education (EASNIE) biannual meeting (Larnaca, Cyprus, May 2026). 

•    Our LEANS evaluation paper has racked up over 18,000 views and downloads since its September 2024 release, which is very exciting! Don’t forget it’s open access—free to readers everywhere.

Jo Billington, Anna Cook, Lorna Hamilton and Alyssa Alcorn at the Autism Europe Conferencee

And finally…did you miss the book news from the end of 2025?

Check out It Takes All Kinds of Minds: Fostering Neurodivergent Thriving at School

This book, whose editors include LEANS researcher Prof Sue Fletcher-Watson and LEANS Champion Claire O’Neill, provides an inspiring and accessible introduction to neurodiversity in educational settings, informed by research and real-world experience. This book is divided into three main parts: Environments, Practice and Pedagogy, and Relationships In and Around School, with chapters from a range of authors.

LEANS features in the following chapter, co-written by researcher Dr Alyssa Alcorn, LEANS design team member Amy Nic Thaidgh, and LEANS champion Dr Alun Flynn.

Alcorn, A.M., Nic Thaidhg, A., Flynn, A. (2025). The LEANS programme in the context of neurodiversity-affirmative practice. In Davis, O’Neill, & Fletcher-Watson (Eds) It Takes All Kinds of Minds: Fostering Neurodivergent Thriving at School. Routledge.  

a picture of a bright patterned and yellow book cover. the title of the book is It Takes All Kinds Of Minds: Fostering Neurodivergent Thriving at School. The published is Routledge.

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