Active clinical trials for "Autistic Disorder"

Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) are known to have difficulty with socio-communicative functioning and restricted or repetitive behaviors or interests, and there is considerable evidence that the majority also struggle with associated emotional problems. Speech is typically delayed or may regress, comprehension is impaired, if not at the word level, then at the level of sentences, nonverbal and verbal language are affected, and pretend play is delayed or absent, some children are nonverbal or have sparse, impoverished, poorly articulated, and grammatical speech. Objective: To assess in which interface has ASD best performance or functionality. Method: Will be evaluated 100 individuals divided into two groups: 50 individuals with diagnosis of Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD-group), aged 7 to 15 years old, males and females; and 50 individuals with typical development (TD-group) matched by age and sex to the ASD-group. Individuals with comorbidities and functional disabilities that would impede the completion of the task were excluded.

As anesthesia is often needed for childhood surgery and procedures, researchers have examined the potential effects of anesthesia on neurodevelopment. There are few studies that have examined the effect of anesthesia on neurodevelopment in children with confirmed diagnoses of ASD, and the results of these studies are mixed. Children with neurodevelopmental disorders can have age-dependent variations in brain anatomy, function, and connectivity, which may alter their sensitivity to the potential neurotoxic effects of anesthetic and sedative drugs. Given the potential adverse neurodevelopmental effects of anesthesia on typically developing children, it is important to examine if anesthesia exposure can worsen the clinical course of ASD.

The following study aims to understand the feasibility of the mobile app and game, GuessWhat, to deliver behavioral therapy to children with autism. The GuessWhat app is a charades style game that engages parent and child in fluid social interaction where the parent must guess what the child is acting out based on the prompt shown on the phone screen. Participants will use their own personal phone to download the study app. The app will walk participants through a variety of charades style games. The interactive games will be video recorded and all data are transferred securely to the Wall Lab for analysis. This study is enrolling parents of children with ASD who are at least 18 years of age and have a child between 3-12 years old. Parents are asked to complete questionnaires before and after playing the GuessWhat game with their child 3-4 times per week for 4 weeks.

Although there are some studies investigating the physical activity levels of children with autism in the literature, no comprehensive study investigating the relationship between posture and physical fitness parameters, family anxiety level and quality of life of individuals with autism who have continued physical activity program has not been found. The aim of our study is to compare postural disorders and physical fitness parameters, family anxiety level and quality of life between individuals with autism and healthy individuals attending physical activity program.

The Covid-19 outbreak has caused families and individuals to change their life routines and eating habits, and has affected their psychology, especially for children with autism, due to the change in their routines. These psychological changes may trigger the self-harming behavior that is very common in children with autism. Dental trauma, a common problem in children and adolescents, can also be seen in individuals who need special care such as autism. The aim of this study is to evaluate the susceptibility of children with autism to orofacial trauma during the pandemic period and compare them with the pre-pandemic period and the healthy group, as well as to question the lifestyle, nutritional habits, mood changes and oral health behaviors that may be related to the risk of trauma.

The main goal of our study is to find out why some people with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) do not develop verbal abilities or remain minimally-verbal throughout adolescence and adulthood. Current research focuses on investigating brain differences related to processing sounds and initiating speech in adolescents and young adults with ASD varying in language skills, compared to adolescents who do not have ASD, in order to clarify whether atypical processes of auditory perception, perceptual organization and/or neural oscillation patterns may explain why some individuals with ASD fail to acquire functional speech.

The purpose of this pilot study is to determine whether a video-game based motor training can affect postural stability, daily living skills, autism symptoms, and white matter microstructure of the corticospinal tract in adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD).

The goal of this study is to validate a panel of miRNAs that distinguish children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) from their non-ASD peers with a positive MCHAT-R. These biomarkers may allow earlier diagnosis of autism, allowing earlier service, and also help us to understand some of the changes in the brains of autistic children.

The main purpose is to study brain plasticity (the changes that occur in the brain through experience) in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Research suggests that during development, the brains of individuals with ASD may change in response to their experiences differently than the brains of typically developing individuals. Investigators want to understand why and how this difference may contribute to the symptoms of ASD.

Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) is a highly hereditary neuropsychiatric disorder. In children and adolescents worldwide, the prevalence of ASD is estimated at 0.6%. Understanding the biological mechanism of this disorder could potentially facilitate prompt, accurate and personalized therapy. The dysfunction of fronto-temporal circuitry may explain language impairment in ASD. In addition, pieces of evidence suggest that the abnormality of the cortico-striato-thalamic circuitry might be related to social deficits. However, very little is known how changes in these two circuitries are related to variation in genotypes. Previous reports on ASD using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) have demonstrated alteration of brain structure. Recent advance in neuroimaging has shown that structural connectivity of a specific circuitry is superior to regional analysis in terms of higher penetrance of genetic effects and better account for behavioral variance. Therefore, it is plausible that connectivity imaging may serve as effective endophenotypes that link clinical manifestation (phenotypes) and the biological variables (genotypes). In the past five years, our lab has established world leading diffusion spectrum imaging techniques, and applied the techniques to clinical studies on ASD, schizophrenia, stroke and epilepsy. The clinical experience and technical strengths provide a strong basis for us to extend to imaging genetics, aiming to determine effective endophenotypes of ASD. Therefore, the goal of this project is to validate structural connectivity of fronto-temporal and cortico-striato-thalamic circuitries as effective imaging endophenotypes of ASD. Specifically, the investigators will achieve the goal through a series of validation. First, the investigators will demonstrate that structural connectivities in the two targeted circuitries are indeed different among groups of patients with ASD, unaffected siblings, and neurotypicals. Second, the investigators will demonstrate in neurotypicals and unaffected siblings that the altered structural connectivities related to social and language impairments are indeed different in carriers of risk genes, i.e. CNTNAP2 and SLC25A12, respectively. Last, the investigators will demonstrate in all participants that the altered structural connectivities are associated with the corresponding behavioral variances in social and language function. This two-year project is a cohort study consisting of three groups, namely patient, unaffected siblings, and control groups matched in age, gender and handedness. The patient and sibling groups consist of 20 boys each, age 10-15 years old, and the control group consists of 40 boys. The examination includes behavior assessment (IQ test, neuropsychological and clinical assessment), MRI study (structure MRI and diffusion spectrum imaging for structural connectivity) and genome scan(specifically candidate genes related to language function, i.e. SLC25A12, and to social function, i.e. CNTNAP2). In conclusion, this is the first cohort project on imaging genetics in Taiwan. The success of this project will facilitate the progress of translational neuroscience in Taiwan. The methodology of validating endophenotype will be readily extended to other psychiatric diseases.