Secret Agent Society classroom project

The purpose of the Secret Agent Society whole classroom project was to trial a program that fits within the Grade 5 curriculum and teaches skills in emotion recognition and emotion regulation, friendship building and social skills (talking and playing with others), as well as organisation and planning skills and skills to boost children’s self-esteem and respect individual differences.

The overarching aim of this project was to assist children with high-functioning autism to integrate successfully in mainstream classrooms and develop skills enabling them to manage and regulate their emotions more successfully in the social context.

The research objectives were:

• To finalise the Secret Agent Society social-emotional skills program for the whole of classroom delivery
• To obtain ethical clearance from both university and education committees
• To recruit 10 Queensland schools to participate in the program trial
• To train teachers to deliver the program using both face-to-face and online modalities
• To establish the supervision for teachers delivering the program
• To recruit a suitable PhD candidate to complete work associated with this trial

Following the completion of this project, the classroom program will be evaluated by a randomised controlled trial, initially in Queensland, then followed by simultaneous recruitment across New South Wales, Victoria and Western Australia. It is then intended to conduct follow-up with 20 students in Queensland who completed the classroom program and have transitioned to high school.

To find out more about SAS go to: www.autismcrc.com.au/secret-agent-society