(program promo) 00:04
With information on the latest developments in assistive technology and initiatives, from the studios of 2RPH in Sydney, RPH Australia brings you AbleQuest.
Speaker 1 00:23
Hello, I'm Barbara Sullivan. Many parents and teachers worry about children who struggle making friends, feel lonely, or experience big emotions. Now there's a computer-based program to help solve the mystery of social encounters. The Secret Agent Society, SAS, small group program, uses a spy theme to engage children aged between 8 to 12 who train to be secret agents while learning how to feel calm and confident and play with a range of people. By cracking codes and collecting digital gadgets, they learn to decode how people feel and act, build a formula for friendships, cope with change, and deal with bullies. Afterwards, they graduate as secret agents with a robust social toolkit that they can draw on for life.
The program is part of the evidence -based materials and training developed by Social Science Translated, a social enterprise located at the University of Queensland and affiliated with autism CRC. It's a computer game for social skills to prepare children for life's social and emotional challenges, especially those living with autism, ADHD, and anxiety. The program is animated, fun, and individualized, meeting the needs of the child and family. Social Science Translated was a finalist in the Best Assistive Technology section in 2023 Australian Disability Awards. Elaine Wziontek spoke to clinical psychologist and CEO of Social Science Translated, Kathleen Davy, about the computer game and how it can help kids better connect with others.
Speaker 3 02:05
Welcome to the program, Kathleen.
Speaker 2 02:07
Thank you, Elaine.
Speaker 3 02:08
Lovely to be here. Then tell me how does the computer game fit in with the goals that the children have?
Speaker 2 02:14
Great question. So the computer game is one part, and they have adults who are helping them. So at the very beginning of the program, children identify their own goals. It might be about wanting to make a friend for the very first time in their life. It might be about doing really well at school. Some children are really anxious about that in the classroom, and they need help regulating their emotions for that. So we identify the child's needs, and then the computer game teaches them a series of social and emotional skills to help them achieve that goal. Very much the children choose their goals, and the adults are helping them to achieve that.
Speaker 3 02:47
But spending too much time on the internet has been really criticised lately, hasn't it? Especially people with autism, on the autism spectrum. And playing video games has probably been linked to depression and a lack of communication skills because the kids are all looking down and not making eye contact. Yet this secret agent society, this computer program that your enterprise has developed, says that it does the opposite. It empowers children and to develop skills to connect with others. How does that work?
Speaker 2 03:18
It's exactly right Elaine. It does the exact opposite. The program was originally designed to capture that natural interest that kids have in technology and computer games and in the idea of training to be a secret agent while they're learning. So it's actually using that interest to engage the children on learning the skills. It's done in a time specific way. So it's not they're not just playing alone on a computer game. They're actually joining other children in a group meeting with a professional club leader who practices them using skills that they've perhaps learned on the computer games at home.
Speaker 3 03:51
So the whole idea is to embrace diversity. Everybody's different in this computer game.
Speaker 2 03:56
Yeah, through that process the children learn not only to understand their own differences, how they feel emotions, how they express their needs, how they interact with others, how they like to play and they learn about how other people think and how they like to play. So it equips them with not only how to play with kids that are like me but also how to play with kids that are different to me and that's how it's really celebrating diversity.
Speaker 3 04:19
Social skills like learning to talk are innate for most of us. We don't need to go to school, we don't need to do a computer program. So why is that and what do they actually learn in this program?
Speaker 2 04:33
It's a really great thing to bring up. So historically, well, this program was designed for kids with autism. It's now used with a whole range of children. But historically, it was thought or it was framed that these children had a deficit in being able to read other people and communicate with other people. Now in our modern times, we understand more about diversity and how it's not necessarily that these people have children have a deficit, but they actually just have a different way of perceiving the world.
So it's not about you're right or wrong and we need to teach you to behave a different way. It's about understanding my own preferences with socialising with others and learning how other people prefer it differently to me. So it's helping children who they may not naturally get how children differently to them communicate. So what do they learn?
Speaker 3 05:22
I understand it's about codes, you learn a code as a secret agent.
Speaker 2 05:27
Yeah, in secret agent society, the children learn to crack the code of emotions and social skills. They're given things like relaxation gadgets such as an O2 regulator. They learn how to activate their O2 regulator, which is slow breathing. That helps them learn how to calm down when they're maybe anxious or angry. They also learn things like the confusion code, which is a step by step process on how to stay calm and respond to something that's really different or new for you that you've never done before. So there's a whole series of secret agent codes and special gadgets that give children tools and a framework to regulate themselves and to interact with others.
Speaker 3 06:04
And you even learn how to manage bullies.
Speaker 2 06:06
Oh yes, there's a bully guard body armour. There's different components that they learn that they choose which things are right for the right situation or right for them. So one of the components is a cruel comments deflector shield. And this is where we're helping children to be able to cope in the moment, to go and be able to seek help by pretending they have a reflection or a deflection shield protecting them from if someone's saying nasty things to them. That's an example.
Speaker 3 06:37
Uh-huh. So how was the program developed originally? I understand it was Queensland, a PhD student.
Speaker 2 06:42
It was a Queensland PhD project out of the University of Queensland, Dr Rene Beaumont who is a clinical psychologist now based in New York actually, who's originally from Queensland in Australia. So the program was developed in the early 2000s. The randomised control trial which is a really high level research study was done through that PhD which actually produced the highest clinical change published for a program of its kind, which is really cool for your PhD, your very first major research project. And that has gone on then to have other researchers around the world looking into it and having us helping connect the program with schools and clinical services and families around the world.
Speaker 3 07:25
So people who enjoy video games are probably attracted to the four different levels you master one level and you move on to another as your secret agent career progresses.
Speaker 2 07:34
Yes, Elaine, they do, and when they finish the whole process, they graduate as special agents. So they come in as cadets, and the computer game you mentioned has four levels. Level one is focused on recognising other people's face, voice, and body clues that tell you how they're feeling. So imagine you're someone who perhaps misses when other people are confused by what you said, or they're really bored by what you say, or maybe they're about to get really angry with you, and you don't notice it because you're not reading their face clues or their body clues. So it teaches kids that.
Level two, they start to look at their own body clues and how to detect different things that change in our bodies that tell us we are feeling nervous or angry or scared. Then level three, it starts to apply those skills into little scenarios where the kids have choose your own adventure stories, where by choosing different choices for the character, it shows different things happen. So they get to see what might or might not happen if you choose to calm yourself down before you go into a particular situation or not, or what might happen if you apologise for something that didn't quite go right versus if you don't, or if you go on bragging and bragging and bragging about how great you were at something, the different social consequences that can happen.
Speaker 2 08:46
So they choose their own adventures and they explore using different strategies.
Speaker 3 08:51
Did you do some of this on paper before you did it on computer?
Speaker 2 08:54
Yes. So the program, when it was originally designed in the early 2000s, it was books, toys and a separate computer game. So the kids had learning games they'd play on a computer and then they'd come in with their books. In 2020, however, the entire process was transformed into a digital health platform. So the professionals who lead the program, they now do their training through the very same software that they lead groups with kids and parents and the kids computer game play. It's all connected together. So everyone has real time progress. Mum can pull out her phone in the shopping centre and pull out an O2 regulator to help the child to calm down by breathing in the middle of the shops because it's all connected.
Speaker 3 09:38
Sounds terrific - so I understand there's it is research-based, it's not just anecdotal - that you've helped some children in Queensland. So can you tell us about the research and so that you really know that the program works for for most people yeah most children isn't it is it between 8 and 12 the age group
Speaker 2 09:57
Yeah, the research behind the program shows that it's effective for 8 to 12 year olds, originally designed for autism, but now a whole heap of different children, including neurodivergent children with ADHD or anxiety disorders as well. In terms of the number of children, it's certainly not just one or two children. We estimate about 30 ,000 children have benefited from the program since it was first designed. And since we changed it into the digital health program, there's over 7,500 children.
For the people who love research, who are listening to us alone, there's over 20 publications from different corners of the world exploring different areas of the research. So we can very much say it's an evidence-based program. It has four randomised control trials, which are really high-level research.
Speaker 3 10:40
So do children stay on it for six months or how long, how does it usually work?
Speaker 2 10:45
So typically the program runs for initially nine weeks, your break for school holidays, nine weeks, and then there's follow up booster meetings in the six months that follow. So three months initially and then another couple of months where your touch base back.
Speaker 3 11:00
Can you give an example of a child that has been on the autism spectrum, not being able to communicate and relate to people, and then after going on your program, things have turned around for them in the school?
Speaker 2 11:14
Yeah, time and time again we hear about children who have gone through the program and before doing secret agent society they had never had a friend and that was one of their goals. For some children it's not. We've had many children where that was their goal and doing the program helped them to meet their very own first friend. Part of the program they learn their own formula for friendship and how you can grow a friendship and so some of them implement that in the program.
There's also children whose schools and parents have used to help them build the confidence to transition out of specialist education services and into mainstream classes which has been a humongous benefit to those families. There's children who, thinking of one child who was always getting very angry with his little brother and that was causing a lot of distress in the home because he wasn't able to regulate his emotions. The things that his little brother were doing were triggering him and through the secret agent society process not only did the child learn how to recognise their body clues, detect those body clues that told them that they were getting angry.
It also helped him to understand his brother's perspective, how to communicate and how to seek help from his parents. While his parents were learning, how to also prompt him to use these skills and that then in turn over that that process of the program helped them all to have a more harmonious home life.
Speaker 3 12:35
At school with the teachers.
Speaker 2 12:37
Same thing at school, often asking for help and being able to stay calm when you've made a mistake. So a lot of the kids who do the program can have a real fear of mistakes and really want to get the best marks or get things right and so they spend their whole day in the classroom being really, really anxious that they're getting things wrong. So at school often helping them to stay calm, raise their hand, ask for help, things like that.
Speaker 3 13:01
So Kathleen, it's been great to talk to you. So if any listeners want to know more about the secret agent program, where can they find out more?
Speaker 2 13:12
So everyone could go to secretagentsociety.com, which has all the information on the program, whether you're a school wanting to implement it or a psychologist wanting to run it, or a parent looking to enroll your child in the program, you'll find there we have a finder provider map where you can put in your postcode or your suburb and see if anyone's near you. But I will add there's a lot of providers who also offer it via telehealth. So you could live in a remote corner of the country and still connect with a trained provider and access the program for your child.
Speaker 3 13:43
Thank you, Kathleen. It's been great to talk to you today and thank you very much for coming into our Glebe Studios.
Speaker 2 13:49
Thank you, Elaine, for it's been wonderful to have the opportunity to share Secret Agent Society with the listeners of 2RPH.
Speaker 3 13:56
And I've just been speaking to Kathleen Davey, who's the CEO and clinical psychologist at Social Science Translated about solving the mysteries of social encounters.
Speaker 1 14:13
You have just been listening to AbleQuest, a program that looks at developments in assistive technology and initiatives. From Elaine Wziontek and Barbara Sullivan, thank you for listening and goodbye till next program.
