Celebrating 3 years of LEANS

On 9th June 2022, the LEANS website and resources went live for the first time, with our public online launch event following a few days later. We were both proud and highly nervous to have sold out 1,000 tickets (if you can sell out free tickets!), but also very happy with the event and the engagement from so many educators, neurodivergent community members, families, and more. While we have given many talks since and written many general interest articles, the launch video is still one of the best ways to learn about the project, because you will hear from so many different team members, bringing their own perspectives.

Looking back from three years later ... all of us had no idea that the launch was only the beginning, even if it also marked the end of so much work! We believed that there was community appetite for LEANS, but have been amazed and humbled by the number of people who have engaged with it since. We have had over 15,000 downloads from around the world - plus all of the engagement with our website, talks, and papers. Our feasibility study of LEANS in schools (free, open access) also finally appeared in September 2024, and we have had over 9,000 views so far. Amazing! Thank you so much to all the people who have written to us, invited us to be part of your events and training, and most of all used LEANS, in whatever ways.  

It's important to also acknowledge that we hear from people saying that LEANS does not meet the needs of their specific setting - their audiences, time constraints, language, their goals. This 100% makes sense! As all LEANS team members have said many times, LEANS won’t be right everywhere, right now. When we designed it, we focused on a very specific context and tried to do that one thing well, knowing it would not meet other needs. 

The more that community members speak up about what other resources are needed, the better the chance that others will hear you and work on filling those gaps. Please consider whether you can ‘vote’ with your own time and experience to support the people/groups designing and testing those new resources - or if you could be the one to start something new.  

From January-March of this year, we ran a large online survey for all those who completed LEANS terms of use forms (and agreed to follow-up contact). We wanted to know whether and how people had used LEANS resource items. Approximately 380 people completed at least part of the survey. The largest groups were educators from the UK, but the data include a wide range of roles from countries around the world! Once again many thanks for your time, both to the participants and those who were interested but ultimately not eligible.

We are still analysing this data now, and expect to post it as a preprint and submit it to an academic journal before the end of the year. 

While LEANS has not had funded staff time during this year, that doesn’t mean that all activity has stopped! Here’s what we’ve been up to…

Publications

These publications either directly report about LEANS, or discuss it as an example. All of these are open access, which means free to all readers!

• LEANS school-based study: Alcorn, A. M., McGeown, S., Mandy, W., Aitken, D., & Fletcher-Watson, S. (2024). Learning About Neurodiversity at School: A feasibility study of a new classroom programme for mainstream primary schools. Neurodiversity, 2. https://doi.org/10.1177/27546330241272186
• Inclusive research: Fletcher-Watson, S., Joseph, H., Crane, L. et al. Applied Principles for Inclusive Practice in Neurodevelopmental Research: A Selection and Report of Illustrative Case Studies. Curr Dev Disord Rep 12, 7 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40474-025-00318-1
• Neurodiversity for kids! Crompton CJ, Alcorn AM, Cebula K and Fletcher-Watson S (2024) Neurodiversity Can Explain Differences in How People Experience Everyday Life. Front. Young Minds. 12:1434143. https://kids.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frym.2024.1434143

Talks, workshops and media

• Dr Alyssa Alcorn and the LEANS project was featured on the PsychBites educational psychology podcast
• LEANS was the subject of a special University of Edinburgh impact feature
• Training workshop for educators at Essex County Council
• Talks at the University of Reading, University of Bristol and SE19 SEND Forum (England).

In May 2025, Dr Alyssa Alcorn gave the keynote address on LEANS at the Embracing Neurodiversity conference in St John’s, Newfoundland. This annual event is hosted by the Autism Society of Newfoundland and Labrador (ASNL). Over 200 professionals, autistic people, parents and other stakeholders came together for a lively event. This was the first LEANS talk or workshop we have delivered in Canada, which was an exciting milestone!

Cold weather and foggy skies could not dim the incredibly warm welcome from the entire ASNL team and from the conference audience. Thank you again for this opportunity to share LEANS, and discuss how it might apply in Canadian contexts!

Original team members (and new ones) are still working on initiatives related to LEANS actively applying for further funding. If we are successful in launching a new project, we will make sure to announce it here and through the LEANS mailing list! Sign up for the list here. 

We are also continuing to have conversations with international researchers and organisations who are interested in learning from LEANS, or bringing it to their local context. Later in summer 2025, there will be LEANS talks to research groups/networks in Austria and Germany! Multiple team members will also be at the Autism Europe Congress in Dublin, with LEANS appearing in a symposium currently scheduled for Thursday 11th September (S3.06).

As you may know, translation and licensing opportunities are possible for LEANS. The process and example paperwork is detailed on our dedicated translation webpage. We have been having some exciting conversations about this, and hope we can be announcing new translations soon!

Finally, as announced in a previous newsletter, members of the LEANS team are also working on completely new neurodiversity-related work. Please join our mailing lists to hear about new opportunities for individuals, groups, and schools!

• Salvesen Mindroom Research Centre main newsletter (Sue Fletcher-Watson and team, University of Edinburgh)
• Neurodiversity research opportunities digest (Alyssa Alcorn, now University of Bristol)

Last but certainly not least, we would also like to say a huge THANK YOU to Susan Davidson! “Sue D”, as we know her, is SMRC’s research co-ordinator who will soon be retiring from the University of Edinburgh. She has been an essential (but mostly behind-the-scenes) member of LEANS throughout its lifecycle, and we will miss her very much. Au revoir, Sue D!