Active clinical trials for "Autistic Disorder"

The purpose of this study is to determine if human immunoglobulin given by mouth twice a day is effective in treating the persistent gastrointestinal (GI) problems such as diarrhea, constipation, abdominal pain, and bloating, in children with autism.

This study will examine the effect of valproate, a medication used to treat seizures and bipolar disorder, on aggressive behavior in children and adolescents with autism.

ASD children with gastrointestinal problems that interfere with daily routine will be recruited at the center for Autism led by Prof Zachor, and at the Pediatric Neurology & Development Center at Shamir Medical Center. Publications in the social media- facebook and support groups for Autism will also be used. The decision whether or not to initiate any medical treatment will not be influenced by the study investigators and will be made solely by the treating doctor. If possible, participants will provide informed consent after receiving a thorough explanation by the study team, as will both parents or other legal guardians. Two groups randomization will be performed, group A and group B. The group randomization will be double blinded. Participants randomized to group A will receive 10 capsules FMT twice a week for 3 weeks, and at week 12 followed by 3 weeks placebo twice a week. Participants randomized to group B will receive 10 capsules placebo twice a week for 3 weeks and at week 12 followed by 3 weeks FMT twice a week. At baseline, participants will undergo a full physical examination, vital signs, medical questionnaire, ROME III questionnaire for kids >age4 />age 10, ATN-GISSI-17 questionnaire, Aut-Eat questionnaire regarding eating habbits, the Social Responsiveness Scale (SRS) and the Adaptive Behavior Assessment System (ABAS). Parents/ care providers will fill a daily symptoms follow-up questionnaire at baseline Fecal samples will be provided for analysis of microbiome and proteome at beseline, weeks 3,12, 15 and 6+9 months. At each FMT/Placebo administration a short questionnaire asking about possible adverse events, GI symptoms, overall well-being, and medication changes will be administered

Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) usually exhibt problematic behavioral issues such as hitting, non-compliance, tantrums, spitting, headbanging and aggression, this not only cause distress for the child but also has a significant effect on the mental health of the parents. In Pakistan, the rise in ASD children, lack of resources, non-advocacy, and limited knowledge amongst health professionals have created an alarming situation not only psychologically but also because of the economic burden. The current study is to assess the impact of a psychoeducation and parental skills training programme for reducing the parental psychological stress and disruptive behavior of their children with Autism. This is a 24 weeks parent education and behavioural management manualized programme based on the principles of applied behavior analysis. The plan will include skills training on replacing problematic behaviours with more appropriate behaviours, improving social communication in verbal and non-verbal children, and interactions with peers and others. The parents will be trained on the manualized training programme in groups or as individual sessions using modelling, role-plays and rehearsal as training methods. A total of 60 parents of ASD children, age ranges from 3 to 9 years with disruptive behaviour will be recruited. The diagnosed ASD children screened from the standardised instruments not later than six months and scored > 15 on the subscale Irritability of Aberrant Behaviour Checklist will be randomly divided into two groups, 1) parents receiving manualized training program 2) parents receiving education sessions. The baseline will be determined baseline by using parent-rated instruments for behavioural problems using the Aberrant Behaviour Checklist, Home Situation Questionnaire, Vineland Adaptive behaviour scales, Symptom Checklist 90, and Parental Distress Index. Overall there will be 12 core sessions on the Parental Education (PE) pertaining to parent education including advocacy and educational planning over 24 weeks and 11 sessions of Parent Training (PT) for managing behavioural issues of autistic children. Each session will last for 60 to 90 minutes. There will be six months follow up, and evaluation will be done by the masked assessor. All the sessions will be from a trained psychologist and behaviour analysts who have more than 1 year experience of working with children with ASD. To ensure treatment integrity, all training sessions will be assessed after every 4 weeks by using behavioural measures to evaluate the correct implementation of treatment protocol. Some of the sessions will be recorded. It is anticipated that parent training will improve the mental health of parents and reduce the disruptive behaviour of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder.

The current study will examine the efficacy of a virtual reality (VR) intervention entitled "Virtual Reality Job Interview Training (VR-JIT)" as well as a newly developed Kessler Foundation STRength IDentification and Expression tool (VR-STRIDE) with adolescents diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder.

In this study, the investigators will examine the feasibility, acceptability, and preliminary efficacy of a novel, behavior-based approach for treatment of depression symptoms in adolescents with autism spectrum disorder or ASD (i.e., Behavioral Activation for Adolescents with ASD, BA-A).

There is a paucity of research evaluating the effectiveness of a multidisciplinary approach in an outpatient clinic setting in the management of feeding problems in children diagnosed with ASD. Current behavioural interventions geared to address this problem can be labour intensive and costly. The SOS approach for managing feeding problems in children has been adopted internationally. Thus establishing its effectiveness will be useful in providing evidenced based interventions for feeding difficulties in ASD.

It's an interventional, prospective and monocentric pilot study concerning adult patients with autism without mental retardation. The primary outcome is to assess the effects of cathodal transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) on the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) on the executive functions of patients with autism without mental retardation or with Asperger syndrome. The secondary outcomes are to evaluate the safety of this treatment and to evaluate its impact on impaired social communication and on restricted or repetitive behaviors.

In this study, 50 children between 3 and 12 years old with formally diagnosed autistic spectrum disorders (ASD) and also having significant mitochondrial dysfunction will be treated for a 3 month period with the Mitochondrial Cocktail, a combination of specific nutritional supplements and metabolite intermediates (including anti-oxidants) and bio-energy substrates. A series of neurological and psychological evaluations will be conducted by trained evaluators/clinicians to evaluate both the severity and the clinical presentation of the ASD/mitochondrial dysfunction with each subject at baseline prior to treatment, after the 3 month treatment and again at 6 months, after another 3 month non-treatment period. In addition, laboratory investigations will be conducted at the same time-points to assess the mitochondrial dysfunction and cellular biomarkers thought to be associated with autistic and mitochondrial disorders. These investigations will include the analysis of samples of blood and cheek/buccal swabs collected from each child to assess select biochemical markers of ASD. The Mitochondrial Cocktail treatment will be administered at home once a day continuously for a total of 3 months. All the children in the study will be treated with the same Mitochondrial Cocktail (an open label study).

Background: - People with autism and autism spectrum disorders have problems with communication, behavior, and socializing, and many also have intellectual and developmental disabilities. The cause of autism is not known, but previous research has suggested an association between autism and immune changes in the brain. Researchers are interested in using the experimental radioactive drug (11C)PBR28, which attaches to a protein in the brain that is involved in immune changes, in positron emission tomography (PET) scanning of people with and without autism to see if there are greater immune changes in those with autism. Objectives: - To determine if positron emission tomography scanning can be used to evaluate changes in an immune system protein in the brains of people with autism. Eligibility: - Individuals between 18 and 45 years of age who have been diagnosed with either autism or autism spectrum disorders, or are healthy volunteers. Design: Participants will be screened with a physical examination and psychological examination, medical history, questionnaires about behavior and mood, and blood and urine tests. Participants will have two imaging studies of the brain at separate study visits. The first study visit will involve a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan to provide a baseline image of the brain. The second study visit will involve PET scan with the radioactive chemical (11C)PBR28 to study immune system proteins in the brain. The MRI scan will take about 40 minutes, and the PET scan will take about 2 hours. Participants will have a final study visit 24 hours after the PET scan to provide a final blood sample for testing.