Active clinical trials for "Child Development Disorders, Pervasive"

This study will examine the effects of treatment with the anti-anxiety medicine buspirone on driving performance (eye tracking) in individuals with high-functioning autism spectrum disorder (HF-ASD). The study consists of an Assessment Visit at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), as well as two Driving Simulation visits that will take place at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Subjects will be given buspirone and asked to take the medication for the two days preceding the Driving Simulation Visit.

Background: Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) are at higher risk for developing co-existing mental health conditions and consequently experiencing psychiatric hospitalization, compared to the general pediatric population. However, hospital environments can be exceptionally stressful for this population, given their social-communication deficits, ineffective emotional regulation skills and heightened physiological arousal. While the use of animal-assisted activities (AAA) show potential for various improvements in children with ASD in community settings, these "stress-reducing" and "social-buffering" benefits have not yet been studied within a psychiatric hospital setting for youth with ASD. Objectives: Evaluate whether an AAA with canines can lead to reduced physiological arousal and improvements in social-communication as well as aberrant behaviors in children and adolescents diagnosed with ASD in a specialized psychiatric hospital setting. Methods: Participants were recruited from the Neuropsychiatric Special Care (NSC) program's inpatient and/or partial day-treatment program. Prior to study participation, baseline demographic measures were acquired from caregivers and participants' ASD diagnosis was confirmed. Participants experienced two, randomly assigned 35-minute sessions (AAA and Control Condition) with a minimum two-day washout period between groups. Each session included a baseline 20-minute social skills group immediately followed by a 10 minute experimental or control condition. The AAA condition introduced a canine and volunteer handler for free interaction time while the control condition introduced a novel toy and a volunteer for free interaction. Participants' physiological arousal was continuously assessed throughout all conditions via the Empatica E-4 wristbands (Empatica Inc. 2014). All sessions were videotaped for behavioral coding using the Observation of Human Animal Interaction for Research - Modified, v.1.

The prevalence of autism spectrum disorders (ASD) has increased dramatically in the last decade. The increasing occurrence of ASD creates an imperative need to test the effectiveness and efficacy mechanisms of appropriate interventions. Hippotherapy (HPOT) is a treatment option that has been show beneficial for children with ASD as well as other children with developmental disorders. The current projects focuses on understanding the mechanisms of HPOT efficacy and evaluating a short-term HPOT program for children with ASD.

The prevalence of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is rising and was estimated to have a prevalence of around 1.5% in developed countries in 2016. ASD is characterized by impairments in social interaction and repetitive behavior and is associated with executive dysfunction such as impaired working memory, inhibition, and flexibility. Furthermore, ASD is often associated with multiple comorbidities such as attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), depression, and anxiety. Systematic reviews and meta-analyses indicate that fish oil (FO) supplementation improves attention, impulsivity, and hyperactivity in children with ADHD and beneficial effects in adults with depression and anxiety. Some randomized trials in children with ASD have shown improvements on selected executive functions, but results from meta-analysis are inconsistent and no trial has examined the effect in adults with ASD. Furthermore, most of the previous studies have mainly assessed effects by questionnaires and no objective tests, only provided low doses (<1.5 g/d of n-3 long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids) and none of them have examined the potential influence of comorbid ADHD, depression, or anxiety. The aim of the study was to examine the effect of FO on sustained attention and visuospatial short-term memory memory, as well as cognitive inhibition, executive function, and core symptoms of ASD, and of ADHD, and social function in adults with ASD. In light of the shared and additive cognitive impairments in individuals with both ASD and ADHD, the hypothesis was that individuals with comorbid ADHD will show the most pronounced effects. The study furthermore aimed to examine potential interaction with depression, anxiety, and gender. This was investigated in a randomized double-blind head-to-tail crossover trial in 26 adults with ASD, who are provided with FO and safflower oil (SO) for 4 weeks each. The subjects were examined at baseline and after each period with tests of attention and working memory (primary endpoints) as well as a test of cognitive flexibility and clinical questionnaires.

The investigators aim to identify the effect of a 12-week fundamental motor skills (FMS) (e.g., throwing, catching, running) intervention on the active participation in physical recreation activities and a variety of other factors (child behaviors, communication, and adaptive skills) and to identify patterns, benefits, constraints, and strategies to active participation in physical recreation activities among families of children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) (pre-post) through in-person or via phone interviews with parents and children with ASD.

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 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.

Sleep disturbance is very common in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD),and closely associated with their core symptom, social deficit.This trial investigates the effects of Cognitive behaviour therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) in children with autism spectrum disorder with sleep problems through synchronized eye-tracking and functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). This is a 1:1 parallel single-blind randomized controlled trial.

This study aims to develop a culturally-sensitive parent-training intervention to enhance socioemotional functioning of young children (aged 3-6) with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in Mainland China. The investigators will conduct randomized controlled trials to evaluate the effectiveness and feasibility of this program in a pilot study and then a large-scale community-based study in Shenzhen, China, to examine the generalizability of the treatment outcomes of this intervention for Chinese children with ASD.

This study is designed to pilot an intervention technique to reduce the self-stimulating behaviors seen in individuals with autism spectrum disorders using intervention with ProFoveate pellets. Self-stimulating behaviors like hand flapping, eye blinking, and rocking, can interfere with the individual's ability to interact with their peers. Participants will wear the pellets for four week and measures with taken again. Another group of participants will not get the pellets. Both groups will be tested at the beginning and end of the study. Any variations in self-stimulating behaviors will be documented through parent report, Observational data. The investigators hypothesize that they will see changes in self- stimulating behaviors as a result of the strategic placement of the ProFoveate™ pellets on the ears of one group of the participants.