Active clinical trials for "Autism Spectrum Disorder"

The purpose of this study is to test whether Direct Instruction - Language for Learning (DI-LL) is an effective way to teach language skills to children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and moderate language delay. Direct Instruction - Language for Learning (DI-LL) uses face to face instruction and specific lessons to teach children language skills. This method has been used previously in children with language delays, but it has not been carefully studied in children with autism spectrum disorder. This study will compare DI-LL and ongoing treatment as usual to treatment as usual (speech therapy, language services, etc.) alone.

This study is designed to test the safety and efficacy of a single, intravenous dose of suramin in autism spectrum disorders (ASD).

This trial will test the efficacy of robot-enhanced interventions for developing social skills in children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). The study will compare, in an equivalence design, an innovative intervention delivered by a semi-autonomous robotic agent with standard behavioral intervention. The target group is children between 3 and 6 years old which will be randomly allocated to one of the two treatments. Each treatment will be delivered over 8 bi-weekly sessions of 45 minutes each.

The unemployment rate is quite high among adults with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Inadequate transition planning during high school and gaps between vocational needs and availability of evidence-based services help explain the struggles of transition-age youth at obtaining employment. There is a paucity of research on developing and evaluating services to support the transition to the work force after graduating from high school. The lack of available resources to support transition-age youth with an ASD speaks to the need to develop interventions that ameliorate obstacles to employment and help support the transition to the work force. Due to the social deficits characterizing ASD innovative interventions could target preparing job interview skills for students facing the transition to employment as the job interview is a critical gateway to securing a job offer. Thus, the overarching goal of this study is to modify an existing virtual reality job interview skills training program for use in high school students with ASD and to test the feasibility and effectiveness of conducting this intervention in a high school setting via a small controlled trial. Thus, study's first aim is to modify the existing 'Virtual Reality Job Interview Training' program to meet the specific needs of high school seniors with ASD. This will accomplish this by conducting in depth interviews with high school students with ASD and their vocational counselors to solicit feedback to modify the current training's learning goals, content, usability, and simulated interview scripts to meet the specific needs of transition age youth. An expert panel will determine the final modifications to the training program based on the results of the qualitative data analysis and their own views of the program. Second aim of the study is to conduct a pilot trial to evaluate the feasibility, acceptability, portability, fidelity and preliminary effectiveness of the modified intervention in a randomized controlled trial. This study will also explore potential mechanisms for effectiveness and collect pilot implementation data.

This project will address impaired emotion regulation in adolescents with ASD (autism spectrum disorder). There are no evidence-based interventions to improve emotion regulation (ER) in this population, yet poor emotion regulation often leads to maladaptive behavior and substantially impedes capacity to learn and function across all life settings, and reduce their quality of life and that of their families. The primary objective of this study is to formally evaluate efficacy of EASE via a sufficiently powered, two-site randomized-controlled trial (RCT).

The purpose of the study is to determine if intranasal ketamine shows initial evidence of safety, tolerability and efficacy for the treatment of social impairment in individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder.

The goal of this study is to conduct an efficacy trial to determine whether an early communication intervention which blends two evidence-based interventions, Enhanced Milieu Teaching (EMT) and Joint Attention, Symbolic Play and Regulation Intervention (JASPER), improves social communication in toddlers with Autism Spectrum Disorder (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 Social ABCs is an innovative parent-mediated intervention for toddlers with confirmed or suspected Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). The intervention draws on what is known about core, early emerging impairments in ASD, and on evidence-based Pivotal Response Treatment (PRT) and associated parent training programs for enhancing development in children with ASD. Completion of a comprehensive pilot study set the stage for a randomized control trial (RCT) of the Social ABCs. The purpose of this RCT is to evaluate the efficacy of the Social ABCs intervention program on improving spoken language skills and positive parent-child emotion sharing in toddlers with signs of or a diagnosis of ASD.

This study aims to demonstrate that fMRI neurofeedback training improves the identification and comprehension of emotional facial expressions (and overall social behaviour) in subjects with ASD. The intervention setup provides structured presentation of emotional facial expressions and the associated tools for mental imagery. The investigators hypothesize that the accomplishment of the proposed competence training improves the subjects ability to comprehend facial expressions, identify emotions and be able to correctly express them. Intervention Type is a Device (brain computer interface using brain imaging signals) and the specific Intervention Name is Neurofeedback. Structure: (1) initial eligibility screening, (2) pre-intervention (first week of study, baseline outcome measures and additional evaluations), (3) intervention process (8 weeks), (4) post-intervention (outcome measures and additional evaluations), and (5) follow-up (outcome measures at 6 months).