The "Secret Agent Society: Whole of classroom program", investigating the efficacy of a social skill and emotion regulation focused program for children with autism spectrum disorders, unspecified social and emotional difficulties and typically developing children within a classroom context.

RCT involving grade 5 classrooms, divided into those recieving the intervention and those on a waitlist (control). Intervention is a social skill and emotion regulation program called the 'Secret Agent Society'. It was originally created for children with ASD, but will also be offered to children with unspecified social and emotional issues as well as typically developing children with the intention to investigate whether it is of benefit for these populations as well. The SAS:WC intervention will comprise of a one hour class run for the duration of a school term (12 weeks in total). Teachers will provide the content to students, with lessons comprising of group work, computer game components, and students working through a "cadet handbook" (a personal workbook for each student). Classes focus on recognising emotion in others and in the self before moving on the strategies aimed that aid in emotion regulation (e.g. what to do when feeling anxious). The waitlist control will provide class as normal. Teachers recieve two full days of training prior to intervention. Training is run by program creator Dr Renae Beaumont with the aid of Associate Professor Dr Kate Sofronoff (both are clinical psychologists) and Ruby Clarke (a provisional psychologist). Training is intensive and interactive, it is a requirement that those teachers implementing the program in each school attend. It is also the time when resources for the program are provided for the teachers to collect. The program will be taught weekly as a subject for the duration of one school term (12 weeks), with each lesson lasting an hour. Intervention is measured across three time points: pre, post, and at three month follow up intervention. The teachers have access to support via phone, skype and email with the aforementioned people. The program will be run as a subject in a school semester, participating schools have already made a time in their school week and have signed contracts detailing their committment to the program. After initial study with grade 5 classrooms in QLD, 2017 will see the expansion of the study to grade 5 schools in other states within Australia while also following the original QLD cohort as they enter grade 6 and finally grade 7 (high school) to ascertain generalizability and duration of skills learned during intervention.