View clinical trials related to Developmental Disabilities.
Filter by:Anxiety disorders affect 40 to 50% of children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), contributing to substantial distress and impairment. The goal of this study is to examine the effectiveness of a personalized type of psychotherapy against standard-care psychotherapy for addressing anxiety in youth with ASD.
The improvement of treatment of preterm neonates improved their survival, however there is still significant portion of preterm infants (specifically very preterm infants) that suffers from brain insults and as a result developmental deficits. The brain injury is a consequence of hypoxic ischemic events, intracranial hemorrhages, as well as, infections and metabolic crisis. The brain injury is a combination of abnormal myelination, axonal damage and neuronal death. Although there is reduction in focal brain injury, diffuse brain injury is still abundant. Several treatments has been suggested and tested in animal models to prevent the brain insults including glutamate receptor blockers, allopurinol, xenon and different types of stem cells. However, two main obstacles prevent the use of these medication, first the uncertainty of their effect on the developing brain and second the difficulty to time the brain insult. Unlike neonatal asphyxia, when the delivery time and clinical signs are used to time and grade the brain injury, in preterm infants there is no real time tool to indicate severity and timing of brain injury. The disability point out a beneficial therapeutic window is a major obstacle in the acute treatment of brain injury in preterm infants. The aim of this study is to try and delineate such therapeutic window by using brain injury biomarkers. S100b and GFAP are well recognized biomarkers of brain injury in adults, children and infants. Serial measurements of S100b in saliva (every 2 days) and GFAP in serum (weekly) will be sampled. A database of the clinical status of the infants will be collected, as well as, head ultra sound weekly and head MRI a term age. Development will be assessed by at 18 months. Two hypotheses are stated: One, increase in the levels of S100b and GFAP in their timing will be correlated with the severity of the clinical status, Two the duration of increased level of S100b and GFAP will be associated with abnormal MRI at term findings and abnormal developmental assessment.
The purpose of this study is to examine the effectiveness of group psychoeducation for the psychological distress of mothers with the children of high-functioning pervasive developmental disorder and for their behavior based on disorder traits.
The purpose of this study is to develop a new diagnostic method for developmental disorders based on behavior recording during the interview of the subjects by medical staff as well anonymous persons. The behavior recording by video camera will be accompanied by non-invasive physiological recordings, including electroencephalogram (EEG), electrocardiogram (ECG), electromyogram (EMG), and body temperature using infrared (IR) thermograph. Thus, the physiologically relevant and the disorder correlated behavior parameters could be extracted and used as new diagnostic markers. If necessary, the medical staff may take blood sample from the subject before and after the interview. For the longitudinal study, the similar interview and the recording of the same subject will be planned to evaluate the effect of the medical and educational intervention. The investigators also examine the synergistic effect of the intervention and the administration of the supplement (e.g., vitamin D, arachidonic acid, coenzyme Q10 (CoQ-10)). The clinician may use Risperidone.
This study is designed to test the hypothesis that the level of the thyroid hormone thyroxine (specifically, free thyroxine, FT4) circulating in the blood of pregnant women is the key thyroid-related factor to influence early fetal brain development. The investigators will recruit 5000 pregnant women with clinically normal thyroid function (normal thyroid stimulating hormone levels) in the second trimester. After the baby has been born, the investigators will measure FT4 in the second trimester maternal blood sample to identify 100 cases (very low FT4 levels) and 100 matched controls (normal FT4 levels). The children of cases and controls will undergo neurodevelopmental testing at 2 years of age to determine whether IQ differs according to maternal FT4 levels during pregnancy. The potential impact of the study is that if such an effect is found, it might be possible to avoid these adverse developmental consequences in children by designing and testing strategies to identify and treat high risk women.