View clinical trials related to Autism Spectrum Disorders.
Filter by:Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a group of severe, life-long developmental disorders. Oxytocin (OT) is a neurohormone involved in both repetitive/rigid and social behaviors. This study is focusing on how a single dose of intranasal OT (IN-OT) affects cognitive rigidity and social perception tasks. Taking OT as a spray through the nose increases social and decreases repetitive behavior in some adults with ASD, and we are exploring if it helps children with ASD similarly. However, it is unclear whether every person with ASD has an abnormal OT level, and if OT affects restrictive or social behavior differently. Consequently, we aim to study whether OT treatment can be effective in treating subgroups with specific features of ASD. We will use approaches utilizing both behavioral and physiological responses to clarify the role of OT in ASD. We will develop a deeper understanding of the range of social and rigid behaviors and use that information to identify persons with ASD who would benefit from OT treatment. Potential subjects will be asked if they want to participate in two sessions in our clinical laboratory where they will get either single dose IN-OT or placebo. After receiving the substance, they will be asked to do a handful of tasks while we monitor heart rate, eye movements, and collect baseline and post intranasal blood, urine and saliva. The levels of hormones, metabolites and peptides related to or interacting with OT will be measures in the collected samples of blood plasma, urine and saliva. Additionally DNA will be extracted from the blood samples to study genes related to OT and ASD.
The purpose of this study is examine emotional regulation and reflective functioning in parents of children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) before and after an educational training (four sessions of group workshops). Our experimental aims are the following: 1) examine parental emotion regulation and reflective functioning in daily life, 2) examine child emotion regulation in their daily life 3)Learn about the training efficacy for ASD parents. This research study will help to formulate innovative treatment methods to reinforce positive emotion regulation and reflective functioning in both ASD children and their parents.
The SaLSA (Screening and Linkage to Services for Autism) study will test whether patient navigation can help disadvantaged families obtain earlier diagnosis and treatment for their children who have had a positive screening test for autism spectrum disorder. Half of the families will be offered help from an autism patient navigator. The other half will receive standard care.
The goal of the project is to better understand executive control-how children manage complex or conflicting information in the service of a goal. This skill has been linked to social and academic functioning in typically developing children. Executive control is often reduced in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), but it has not been a focus of treatment. This project will have the goal of determining whether computer-training tasks developed to enhance the executive control skills of preschoolers and school-aged children without autism are appropriate for children with ASD. The investigators do not yet know if this training is beneficial for children with ASD. In addition, because executive control has been found to relate to social knowledge and problem solving, the investigators will collect information with this type of task to measure possible effects of training.
Young people between age 15 and 25 with ADHD and/or autism spectrum disorders are offered internet-based support and coaching during eight weeks (chat and e-mail). Data is collected before and after the intervention and six months after end of treatment using self-report questionnaires pertaining to sense of coherence, self-esteem, quality of life, depressive and anxiety symptoms and socioeconomic status. Parents complete an assessment scale for the next of kin. After treatment the young people are interviewed regarding the quality of the intervention. A comparison group matched for age, gender and neuropsychiatric diagnosis is offered treatment as usual and is assessed at the same time points as the intervention group. The individuals are not randomized due to difficulties to recruit if the individuals do not know group assignment in advance.
This is a Brazilian multisite study to test the efficacy of an Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) parent training using video modeling to teach parents of children with Autism techniques to apply to their children in order to improve eye contact and joint attention behaviors. Our hypothesis is that children with Autism whose parents will be trained by videomodeling will have better eye contact and joint attention behaviors compared to children with Autism whose parents will not be trained.
The aims of the national population-based study on Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) include: (1) to understand the overall prevalence of ASD in children aged 6-12 years in 8 cities (n=120,000), (2) to explore environmental and genetic risk factors associated with ASD
Several studies seem to indicate that emotional attention and change-related attention are impaired in ASD. The goal of this study is to identify the relationships between those two types of automatic attention in visual and auditory modalities in subjects with ASD compared to healthy controls and also, over the course of development (children, adults). In order to achieve this goal, the investigators will use complementary techniques (EEG and MRI-based techniques (fMRI, DTI)).
The purpose of this study is to predict and explain on the basis of brain function and structure the behavioral and brain effects of an evidence-based intervention for adults with high-functioning autism, Virtual Reality-Social Cognition Training (Kandalaft et al., 2012; Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders). Adults with autism will be randomly assigned to receive either (a) two hours per week of intervention services for five weeks, or (b) a treatment as usual control. The intervention will focus on enhancing social skills, social cognition, and social functioning. Outcome measures will evaluate changes in these social skills, cognition, and functioning using standardized assessments. We will perform structural and functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans at three time points-before, during, and after treatment (i.e., Time Point #1, 2, and 3).
Determine if riluzole shows evidence of efficacy, safety, and tolerability targeting drug-refractory irritability (DRI) in persons with autism spectrum disorders (ASD).