Active clinical trials for "Autism Spectrum Disorder"

Syracuse University Fit Families is designed to increase the activity level and frequency of the children through modified activities using adapted equipment and, importantly, to increase the families' comfort level in having their children participate in a variety of physical activities, including team and individual sports.

TriVox Health is an online system designed to make it easy for healthcare providers to monitor patients' disease symptoms and functioning over time and in between in-person visits (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VR1vcbx0Ef4). Using combined quality improvement and randomized clinical trial methods, we will evaluate the impact of TriVox on the health outcomes, patient/family experience of care, and healthcare utilization for children and adolescents with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), asthma, autism, depression, and epilepsy.

Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) commonly experience behavioral challenges that may be improved with pharmacotherapy, including difficulties with sleep, attention, hyperactivity, impulsivity, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive behavior, mood swings, self-injury, and aggression. While 34-58% of children with ASD take medication for such behaviors, there is wide practice variation nationally and a lack of evidence to support the use of most commonly prescribed agents. Complex clinical situations such as this where there is no clear "best choice" regarding which behaviors to target and which medications to use lend themselves well to the use of a Shared Decision Making (SDM) tool to ensure that well-informed parent preferences shape every treatment plan. The primary goal of this study is to modify a previously published decision aid about use of medication to manage challenging behaviors in children with autism to make it easy to implement in practice and then evaluate this version in terms of proximal decisional outcomes and parent/child outcomes 3 months later. Providers in a Developmental-Behavioral Pediatric clinic will be enrolled and randomly allocated to intervention or control (treatment as usual) groups. Initially, providers randomized to the intervention group will test and refine the modified intervention. Once the intervention is finalized, eligible patients of participating providers will be enrolled in the randomized controlled trial to test the efficacy of the intervention. Following the trial, control group providers will be crossed over and receive the intervention. Both proximal decisional outcomes (e.g. parent decisional conflict, provider amount of SDM, parent knowledge of treatment options) and outcomes 3 months later (e.g. parenting stress, decisional conflict, and change in child behavioral symptoms) will be assessed. Approximately 10 providers and 240 of their patients with autism will be included in the study. Chart reviews, parental surveys, and recordings of provider-parent-patient interactions during the index visit will be collected at baseline (prior to physician allocation), during the intervention trial, and after the control group has crossed over. Between- and within-group analyses will examine factors associated with parental decisional conflict and whether the intervention produces significant improvements in outcomes over and above typical autism care. Analyses will include multiple linear regression modeling and general linear models / repeated measure models, accounting for data clustered by provider.

The intervention under examination is designed to promote parents' school engagement following the transition from Early Intervention (EI) to preschool for parents of young children who were diagnosed with ASD through our screening and assessment protocol. The brief intervention employs principles of motivational interviewing to address not only the particular child characteristics and needs associated with ASD but also the unique, system-related challenges of navigating the special education system and advocating for appropriate services. Motivational interventions with parents are designed to elicit parents' specific, action-oriented goals for themselves and their children, enhancing motivation to pursue change, and addressing and resolving obstacles or sources of ambivalence. By identifying and capitalizing on parents' strengths, empowering parents to develop specific goals, and improving parents' readiness to engage actively with their children's school, teacher, and educational team, we expect that this brief intervention will lead to higher levels of parental school involvement, higher special education engagement, and closer and more productive parent teacher relationships.

The purpose of this proof of concept study is to use functional magnetic resonance imaging and behavioral assessments to investigate the effect of citalopram on restricted repetitive behaviors in people with autism spectrum disorders.

This study will evaluate the effects of a cysteine-rich whey protein isolate supplement (Immunocal®) on autistic behavior in pre-school children with autism.

This study is a randomized controlled trial utilizing a patient-centered questionnaire distributed to parents of children with autism. The study arm will receive the questionnaire and will be compared to the control arm, which will receive standard of care. The results of satisfaction surveys will be the primary endpoint of this study.

Open-label Study to Investigate the Pharmacokinetics and Safety of Tasimelteon in Children and Adolescents.

Teachers are increasingly faced with classrooms of students whose needs require support far beyond what traditional teacher-training programs prepare educators to provide. The presence of students with greater challenges in classrooms is due in part to the move to a full inclusion model of education and also to the rising epidemic of mental health disorders in youth. Mental health problems affect up to one million Canadian youth and their families. However, few of these individuals (~20%) receive the support they need (Kirby, 2013; Kutcher & McLuckie, 2013). The Teacher Help research team along with industry partner, Velsoft, and key knowledge user, Nova Scotia Department of Education and Early Childhood Development, will address this barrier by developing, evaluating, and commercializing a sustainable eHealth resource for teachers. Teacher Help is an online program that assists teachers in providing evidence-based interventions to students in grades 1-12 with mental health disorders in the classroom. The program allows teachers in a typical classroom setting to access information and expert-coach and peer support when they need it, so they can intervene early in order to reduce the negative consequences of mental health disorders in youth. Currently three modules (Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder [ADHD], Autism Spectrum Disorder [ASD], and Learning Disabilities [LD]) are at different stages in the innovation pipeline. The investigators will test whether teachers make good use of this program and whether it is effective in improving mental health outcomes among children and youth both at school and at home. The investigators will also study whether the program changes teacher's attitudes toward children and youth with these disorders. The investigators will provide information to the Department of Education on how to use this program. This approach will help ensure that the program will continue after the research study ends. To the Teacher Help team's knowledge Teacher Help is the first and only research-validated eHealth program directly targeting teachers to help them intervene with children and youth who have mental health disorders, thus allowing Canada to take a lead in eHealth as applied to a school context.

This study evaluates the KONTAKT social skills group training in Australian children on the autism spectrum compared to an active control group which is a group Art class