Active clinical trials for "Autism Spectrum Disorder"

Mental health crises involve acute psychiatric states, such as aggression and/or self-injury, which can result in harm to self or others. There is evidence to suggest that 20% to 25% of autistic children are at risk of a mental health crises, however no crisis prevention programs exist for autistic children. The goal of this project is to evaluate, via a randomized design, a novel crisis prevention program.

Families seeking evaluation for autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often face barriers such as low availability of specialists, lengthy waitlists, and long distances to tertiary care diagnostic centers. This is especially true for children from traditionally underserved groups and communities. Without innovative approaches for enhanced identification of ASD, families and clinicians will continue to struggle with accessing and providing care. Telemedicine offers tremendous potential for addressing this need, but there are few psychometrically sound, validated tools that can be administered remotely, via telehealth platforms. This team of investigators developed and conducted a preliminary evaluation of a novel parent-administered, clinician-guided tele-diagnostic tool, the TAP (TELE-ASD-PEDS), designed specifically for direct-to-home and community clinic use with toddlers. Remote administration of the TAP yielded a very high level of agreement with blinded comprehensive evaluation regarding ASD risk classification. Subsequently, the unanticipated broad dissemination of the TAP during COVID-19 demonstrated its value for traditionally underserved groups, spanning broad geographies. Although promising, this work was limited by its specific focus on toddlers with ASD concerns. A telemedicine tool designed for the unique context and population of preschool-aged children referred for diagnostic assessment could have tremendous value in terms of both accurate identification as well as family engagement with service. In the current work, the investigators will now evaluate the performance, usability, and utility of the TAP-Preschool, a new telemedicine tool for ASD risk assessment in preschoolers, through a clinical trial. The TAP-Preschool was developed through a computationally informed co-production in which the targeted population were recruited as active partners in designing the tool. The investigators will gather critical data not only regarding its structure and accuracy, but also its potential deployment across systems responsible for engaging children and families from underserved groups in meaningful service. This work has potential to transform the ASD evaluation process and dramatically improve care access for traditionally underserved groups.

The goal of this observational study is to compare subjects with at-risk-mental-state, early psychosis, schizophrenia, depression, and autism spectrum disorders, with healthy controls (N = 21 x 6). The main questions it aims to answer are: are EEG microstate anomalies associated with diagnosis, clinical and functional prognosis, both in resting conditions and during sleep ? are EEG microstates anomalies associated with differences in sensorimotor integration, prosodic and conversational, interoceptive, and narrative self ? an ancillary study will be to see whether in healthy controls EEG microstate properties vary under light hypnosis conditions. Participants will: undergo deep phenotyping based on psychopathology and neuropsychological assessments undergo a high-resolution EEG (64 electrodes) with a resting period and a sensorimotor task; and healthy controls will have a light hypnosis period. undergo a recording of the characteristics of their voice (tone, prosody) undergo a one-night polysomnography undergo MRI and biological sampling for multi-omic analyses undergo a virtual reality experience

The investigators propose to evaluate the use of a telemedicine tool, the TELE-ASD-PEDS (TAP), that is designed to assess for autism spectrum disorder (ASD) symptoms in toddlers. The TAP was developed at VUMC by a team of clinical psychologists with expertise in the early identification of ASD. The TAP has been studied in controlled laboratory settings, with high levels of family and clinician satisfaction, as well as excellent agreement with blinded comprehensive ASD evaluation. The TAP has also been used to complete direct-to-home telemedicine assessments during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the investigators have not yet compared direct-to-home assessments using the TAP with gold standard, in-person ASD assessments. It has also not yet been studied in a diverse sample of families or with providers outside of VUMC. This study will allow the investigators to address those gaps.

The general goal of the present proposal, Progetto MOSAICO, is the identification of a multimodal panel of neuropsychological, kinematic, neurophysiological, and genetic markers associated with motor abnormalities present in ASD.

The goal of this study is to target the neurobiology of restricted and repetitive behaviors in children with autism spectrum disorder using N-acetylcysteine (NAC), a well-tolerated nutritional supplement that has shown promise for reducing symptom severity in recent small-scale trials. The findings from this research will shed light on the mechanisms of action underlying the clinical benefits of NAC and the effects of NAC on altering restricted and repetitive behavior symptom severity in children with autism spectrum disorder.

This project deals with essential challenges in the context of Autism Spectrum Disorder benefiting from a prospective design in childhood, early intervention and a cutting-edge experimental techniques. The present study tests the potential effect of early intervention on neural and behavioral responses in toddlers at elevated likelihood of developing autism (siblings of children with autism) who show clinical autistic signs. Four comparison groups were included in the study: (1) toddlers at elevated likelihood of developing autism with clinical autistic signs who receive early intervention from 18 to 24 months (2) toddlers at elevated likelihood of developing autism with clinical autistic signs who do not receive early intervention (3) toddlers at elevated likelihood of developing autism without clinical autistic signs who only received assessment and monitoring, and (4) typically developing toddlers who only received assessment and monitoring. This study focuses on social and nonsocial sensory integration skills (measured by electroencephalographic and eyetracking recordings) to identify reliable biomarkers for early detection and intervention of autism during a critical period of development. The characterization of biomarkers will guide the detection of the most vulnerable children that will benefit from early intervention, with the long-term aim of reducing the impact of autism on the National Health System.

The goal of this clinical trial is to learn about the effects of an animal-assisted resilience training in children who experienced stressful life events or who have a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder. The main question it aims to answer is: • Is an animal-assisted resilience training a feasible approach to increase resilience in children with a history of stressful life events or a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder? Participants will take part in 12 training sessions of a standardized resilience training. The training is group-based, takes place outdoors, and includes interactions with different animals. It focuses on self-esteem, self-perception, dealing with emotions, and social competence.

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a group of serious neurodevelopmental disorders. Intestinal microbial disturbance is common in children with ASD, and about 40% of ASD children suffer from gastrointestinal dysfunction. A great deal of evidence shows that intestinal microbes can influence the brain to play its role through "brain-intestinal-microbiota axis". Fecal microbial biota transplantation (FMT) is the most direct way to change the intestinal flora rapidly. We intend to study the difference of intestinal flora structure and metabolism between ASD children and control children at the level of phylum, genus and species; To explore the role of fecal bacteria transplantation in improving core symptoms and gastrointestinal dysfunction of children in autism spectrum disorder; To study the potential etiological mechanism of autism spectrum disorder.

The purpose of this study is to explore the role of probiotics PS128 in improving gastrointestinal dysfunction and core behavioral symptoms in children with ASD, and investigate the underlying etiological mechanisms of ASD.