Active clinical trials for "Child Development Disorders, Pervasive"

Autistic spectrum disorders (ASD) are highly debilitating developmental syndromes which core feature is social and communications disorders. Motor skill impairments are frequently described in autism, but few studies have addressed the question of their origin and their specificity. Furthermore, it is not clear whether motor problems encountered in autism are related to dyspraxia, or if they present with specific features. This project aims at deciphering the origin of motor problems encountered by children who grow-up with autism in order to propose early interventions that could influence the other developmental trajectories, such as the social one. Brain dynamics during sensori-motor learning is explored by applying magnetoencephalography (MEG) during the Bimanual Load-Lifting paradigm. Different motor processes namely: proprioceptive monitoring, use and update of a sensori-motor representation, anticipatory executive control will be correlated to brain oscillation modulation, both topographically and temporally. Two groups of children (aged between 7 and 12) are compared: a group of children with ASD and a control group of typically developing children.

The objective of this study is to prospectively examine the preoperative anxiety scores of ASD patients in an adaptive sensory environment. Additionally, the investigators aim to determine the relationship of severity of sensory integration in ASD patients and their preoperative anxiety scores. The study will also study the family satisfaction with tailored care of their ASD child in the peri-operative environment.

The project's significance includes a big cohort of Autism spectrum disorder (ASD), originality/novelty (new approaches and technologies including next-generation sequencing, multi-echo functional MRI, metabolomics, microbiomics, and machine learning), and the integration of multi-dimentional measures. With the accomplishment of this project, we will establish the most comprehensive ASD bio-bank in Asia, develop ASD NGS panel, identify several ASD biomarkers, publish at least 15 SCI papers in total, and in the end, have patents registration and technology transfer of our precise objective, automated assessment system for ASD. Our findings will further advance our understanding of ASD, ultimately contribute to the early detection, diagnosis, and treatment of ASD, and be the first step of precise medicine for ASD.

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) has been given a high priority for genetic and neurobiological study. There is no such information in Asian population and no study has conducted using Diffusion Spectrum Imaging (DSI) to investigate the connectivity throughout the world. Moreover, no follow-up study has been done to examine the developmental changes of structural and functional connectivity. We anticipate to establishing a cohort of 50 ASD and their siblings with complete clinical, neuropsychological, brain imaging, and genetic data for longitudinal study on ASD. Our findings will contribute to our understanding of the structural and functional dysconnectivity for ASD and whether dysconnectivity can be an endophenotype for ASD and used as a biomarker for early diagnosis of ASD.

This is a non-drug study seeking to characterize different scales to measure repetitive and restrictive behaviors in different ASD sub-populations over time. This study will also explore the use of digital biomarkers.

The investigators designed the Child-Caregiver Interaction Observation Scale（CCIOS）to assess social communication behaviors, stereotyped behaviors for children with autism spectrum disorder(ASD) via a 20-min video of interactions between a caregiver and a child. The original CCIOS coding scheme consists 23 items. The score range for each item is 0-4, with higher scores being indicative of more atypical behavior. The aim of the study is to determine items for inclusion in the final CCIOS coding scheme through exploration of item correlations, establish the cutoff score of CCIOS for ASD and evaluate the reliability and validity of CCIOS. The reliability evaluation include test-retest reliability and inter-rater reliability. DSM-5 criterion is used as the gold standard. Validity is assessed by determining the correlation and consistency between CCIOS and DSM-5 criterion.

The purpose of this exploratory sequential mixed methods study is to develop and refine a parent-mediated mobile app intervention focused on improving the motor outcomes of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) participating in an adapted horseback riding program.

The purpose of this pilot project is to evaluate the feasibility of a mentorship program for adolescents with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Data will be collected from adolescents with ASD and their parents/guardians. Study findings will be used to inform further development of the mentoring program for individuals with ASD.

The significance of this project is the first longitudinal study to investigate the changes of neurocognitive functions of children and adolescents with ASD and to identify the potential neuroimaging endophenotype (biomarkers) for ASD in Asian with advanced imaging technique (Tract-based automatic analysis, TBAA; multi-echo resting-state fMRI in addition to single-echo resting-state fMRI). The success of this project will fill the gap of our understanding of longitudinal changes of brain function by neuropsychological and imaging approaches of ASD in Han Chinese in Taiwan, and is anticipated to facilitate the progress of translational research in ASD.

The primary purpose of the present study is to evaluate the diagnostic validity of eye tracking measurements acquired during viewing of socially-relevant stimuli in predicting ASD diagnosis. The secondary purpose was to explore the potential prognostic value of eye tracking measures through cross-sectional associations with non-verbal cognitive ability. Deficits in eye gaze are a hallmark sign of autism. A large and growing body of research supports the ability of eye-tracking based measurements to sensitively discriminate individuals with ASD and healthy participants. These investigations have identified that the core deficit in autism as disruption of social attention, reflecting an inability to appropriately engage and track socially- and emotionally-relevant aspects of the visual world. Thus, eye gaze tracking, acquired during viewing of socially-relevant stimuli, may be a useful approach to identifying objective markers of ASD. Eye tracking also carries the advantages of being less intrusive and expensive than MRI and genetic testing and specifically focuses on the core neurobehavioral characteristics of ASD - abnormalities in social attention. After diagnosis of ASD, key clinical tasks in young children involve determining an accurate prognosis and tracking the progress of early interventions. Currently, the only prognostic indicators are clinical observations (subjective and expensive) and non-verbal cognitive ability testing (difficult to acquire, time-consuming, unavailable in many settings). Recently, eye gaze tracking was found to predict functional outcomes. Thus, in addition to being an objective marker for ASD, eye tracking measurements have potential to be useful for predicting cognitive and functional outcomes. Similarly, the only available methods for tracking treatment progress are parental reports (highly subjective), clinical observations (subjective and expensive), and cognitive measurements (expensive and unavailable in many settings. This study will evaluate, using cross-section data, the potential for eye tracking data to serve as a proxy for non-verbal cognitive ability scores in determining prognosis for ASD-affected children. Additionally, this study will evaluate the test re-test reliability of eye tracking parameters that can potentially be used to track treatment progress.