Video Mediated Education

The objective of this study is to assess the stress level and engagement of students subjected to different forms of training. The subjects will include students and trainees with learning and/or developmental disabilities in addition to neurotypical students. The training will be delivered in multiple forms: pre-recorded single viewer, prerecorded with additional participants, pre-scripted live one-on-one and/or pre-scripted live with additional participants. We aim to determine which training is least stressful and most engaging for students and if differences exist based on a specific disability with a focus on students with autism spectrum disorder.

What are the goals of the study?

The objective of this study is to assess the stress level and engagement of students subjected to different forms of training.

What will happen during the visit or online?

The subjects will be fitted with a Shimmer Glove on their hand and will wear TobiiPro glasses for eye tracking or an eye tracking bar will be used. Each subject will be asked to submit a salivary sample before each training and directly after each training. They will be asked to complete 3 trainings over 4 visits. The Neurodivergent will attend an acclimation session in which no training is offered.

How will this help families?

This could help them learn which teaching method (in-person, prerecorded video or zoom) is best for their loved one. Which will help them to be stronger advocates.

Researchers at Seattle Children’s are looking for parents of 2 to 12 year old children with autism spectrum disorder to take part in an online survey study and an in-person EEG visit. We will use a variety of neuroscience, behavioral, and self-report techniques to first understand if there are unique emotional or behavioral considerations for families of children with neurodevelopmental disorders and challenging behaviors and if these characteristics influence participation in and completion of interventions.

What are the goals of the study?

This study is being done to learn more about parents’ emotion processes and problem-solving in families of children with neurodevelopmental disorders and behavior problems. For families who participate in this study, parents will complete several questionnaires and one lab-based visit to measure brainwaves with an EEG while completing some problem-solving or other tasks.

What will happen during the visit or online?

Parents will complete about 1 hour total of questionnaires (about themselves and their children) and 1.5 hours of an in-person visit. During the in-person visit, parents will complete 15 minutes of problem-solving activities and 1 hour of EEG (i.e., measurement of brainwaves while playing games).

How will this help families?

Findings will help us support families enrolled in interventions targeting challenging behaviors.

We are the TRANSCEND Research Team at Massachusetts General Hospital – thank you so much for your interest in our research! Our research is about how different areas in the brain are connected in autism compared to typically developing individuals, and is entirely non-invasive. We are currently recruiting individuals ages 14-32. The study would involve behavioral assessments, and 1-2 sessions in the MEG, a device that reads brainwaves, and is similar to EEG. We will also determine with you whether an MRI is needed. If so, it will be a very short one – about 10-15 minutes. You can read more about our studies on our website: http://transcend.mgh.harvard.edu/ We reimburse for time at the rate of $30/hr for behavioral assessments, and $70/hr for MRI/MEG visits. We also reimburse for travel expenses such as Uber and Lyft costs (up to $80 per visit) and for parking. Note also that our visit times are flexible, and we will do our best to accommodate your schedule.

What are the goals of the study?

Our research group studies brain development and associated medical conditions in healthy adults and adults with developmental disorders such as autism, an autism spectrum disorder, language impairments, attention deficit disorders, or sensory processing disorders, including misophonia. Specifically, we are trying to understand how sensory information (sight, hearing, and touch) is processed in the brain of an individual with autism spectrum or other developmental disorders as compared to a healthy individual.

What will happen during the visit or online?

The study would involve behavioral assessments, and 1-2 sessions in the MEG, a device that reads brainwaves, and is similar to EEG. We will also determine with you whether an MRI is needed. If so, it will be a very short one – about 10-15 minutes. If you self-identify as having misophonia, we will ask you to get a comprehensive audiology exam at the Mass Eye and Ear Audiology clinic affiliated with MGH, to rule out other potential auditory processing disorders.

How will this help families?

There is no direct benefit to the subject for participating in the research. We hope that the information gathered in our studies will aid in the identification, understanding, and treatment of autism.

RAYS, a Brown University research study, is aimed at studying the outcomes and development of autistic teens and young adults aged 12-24 as they navigate adolescence to early adulthood.

What are the goals of the study?

The goal of RAYS is to examine the challenges and problems that adolescents and young adults on the autism spectrum experience over the course of adolescence and young adulthood, especially their exposure to alcohol and other drugs.

What will happen during the visit or online?

Participation involves 4 interviews over 3 years, each one year apart after the initial assessment. The study consists mainly of interviews and filling out questionnaires on mood, behavior, alcohol and other drug use, and relationships with family and friends. Teens/young adults can earn up to $395 for participating over the course of the study and parents/guardians can earn up to $225. All visits can be done remotely or in-person. The length of the visits vary by timepoint. Our baseline assessment generally takes 3-4 hours, T2 takes about one hour, T3 takes about 3 hours and T4 takes about one hour. All assessments can be broken up into multiple sessions if needed or completed in one sitting – we leave it up to the participant. If a participant is over 18 years old, their parent/guardian does not need to participate in order for the young adult to participate. If their parent/guardian would like to join the study at a later point, we will try to accommodate enrolling them. 

How will this help families?

This study can help researchers better understand the experiences of adolescents and young adults on the autism spectrum.

Researchers in the Vanderbilt University Medical Center department of hearing and speech sciences are running a study to better understand why some autistic people are more sensitive to everyday sounds than others and how this relates to the way the brain processes sound.

What are the goals of the study?

Although they are not frequently diagnosed, sound sensitivity disorders, including hyperacusis, misophonia, and phonophobia, are extremely common in the autistic population. The purpose of the current research study is to compare and contrast people with and without these different sound sensitivity syndromes in terms of their clinical symptoms, hearing, brain function, and mental health. By examining a group of adults with ALL levels and types of sound sensitivity (including no sound sensitivity at all), we hope to answer fundamental questions about the nature of sound sensitivity and improve the ways in which clinicians diagnose and assess patients with this common complaint.

What will happen during the visit or online?

Study participants will be asked to complete some online questionnaires and come to Vanderbilt for up to two in-person sessions. The first in-person session includes psychoacoustic (hearing) tests, interviews, and standardized psychological assessments. After that session, you may qualify for a second session that will include more hearing tests, brainwave recordings (EEG), and other measures of auditory function. There are no anticipated risks to you, and you may not benefit directly from your participation in this study, though you will have the opportunity to request a report of your study results. Following a screening questionnaire (approximately 10–15 minutes), there are two visits to the laboratory (each lasting approximately 3-5 hours) and two groups of online questionnaires (approximately 20–40 minutes each).

How will this help families?

Currently, research on autism and sound sensitivity has been limited to primarily descriptive studies of prevalence, and there is very little understanding of underlying mechanisms, let alone any evidence-based diagnostic or treatment strategies. This work will be foundational in advancing our knowledge of this problem and its underlying causes in the autistic population, which can hopefully lead the way toward better clinical care for autistic people who experience sound sensitivity in their everyday lives.

Stanford University is recruiting children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) for a research study looking at the parts of the brain that may underlie some restricted and repetitive behaviors (RRB) in children with ASD using N-acetylcysteine (NAC), an over-the-counter dietary supplement. We will use MRI and EEG to determine what changes in the brain may be related to change in RRB severity.

What are the goals of the study?

We hope to learn the mechanisms in the brain through which NAC may be able to alter the severity of RRB in children with ASD and examine whether it might be able to reduce the severity of some of RRB symptoms. We also hope to determine how NAC is able to affect RRB symptoms in children with ASD and what changes in the brain may be related to change in RRB severity.

What will happen during the visit or online?

complete cognitive and behavioral assessments (such as IQ testing)
attempt an MRI and EEG scan
drink N-acetyl cysteine dissolved in water for a total of 12-week period

How will this help families?

Potential benefits include monitored access to utilize NAC, which cannot necessarily be considered treatment for any specific condition in children with ASD at this time. It is also likely that the knowledge gained from this study may generally contribute to better treatment options for children with ASD more broadly.

Post-pandemic, so much healthcare-related assessment is taking place remotely. This can be much more convenient for families with a child who has a complex neurodevelopmental disorder, but we need to know how the information from a remote assessment compares to an in-person one. This project aims to do just that: compare how a child performs on a series of speech, language, and motor assessments in our lab and remotely, at home. We hypothesize that children will perform at least as well when they are in a familiar place like their home.

What are the goals of the study?

This project aims to validate a remote assessment protocol for spoken language and motor skills against the same data collected in person. The purpose is to understand the relationship of scores derived from the tasks when administered in person and via Zoom.

What will happen during the visit or online?

Children with neurodevelopmental or genetic diagnoses between the ages of 2 and 18 are welcome to participate. Families will come to the Motor Development Lab at Boston University for a 2-hour in-person visit where children will participate in a series of motor and spoken-language assessments. Motor assessments will include walking back and forth on our “magic carpet”, which records each of their footsteps, playing a “flamingo game” by balancing on one leg, and putting coins into a piggy bank. Spoken language assessments will include watching a preferred video while we record children’s facial movements, attempting to repeat a set of 8 syllables, a picture-naming task, and trying some tongue-twisters. The specific spoken-language tasks for each child will be selected based on their verbal ability, so everyone has a just-right challenge. The in-person and remote assessments will be audio- and videotaped for later analysis.

At the end of the in-person assessment, families will receive $25, and we’ll make two Zoom appointments. One will be for parents to complete a set of questionnaires about their child’s history and current skills, and the other will be to complete the same spoken-language and motor tasks they just finished at home, via Zoom. Once the two remote sessions are complete, families will receive another $75 and a personalized report if they would like. Parking will be free for the in-person session.

How will this help families?

To create a data set that will help us find potential predictors of spoken language outcomes in children with neurodevelopmental (including autism) and genetic disorders, we need a highly reproducible, validated assessment protocol that can be used with children no matter what their diagnosis. The protocol must be able to be administered remotely as well as in person, because many children with these conditions do not live within easy travel distance of a clinical center and multiple in-person visits are impractical for families due to their already busy rehabilitation schedules. Valid remote assessment reduces the burden of participation in assessments and research studies for families who live in rural areas or lack the ability to take time off from work and spend money on long trips.

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by deficits in social communication and social interaction and restricted, repetitive patterns of behavior. Given the lack of specific pharmacological therapy for ASD and the clinical heterogeneity of the disorder, researchers at The Johnson Center and the University of Texas Southwestern are undertaking an ASD biomarker study with the goal of identifying biomarkers for determining ASD risk and developing potential therapeutic interventions.

This study may help with identifying ASD risk in very young children so that interventions and therapies can begin as early as possible – this is critical for ensuring the best developmental outcome. We will use machine learning (AI) to identify therapeutic targets that may help with addressing ASD-specific behaviors.

What are the goals of the study?

The purpose of this study is to identify biomarkers of ASD that correlate with behavioral and developmental phenotypes in order to:
1) develop and test biomarker profiles that form a diagnostics tool;
2) screen and identify children with ASD who might benefit from specific interventions; and 3) develop and test biomarker profiles that inform an instrument for monitoring therapeutic response to medical interventions; and improve the clinical well-being of affected children and increase our knowledge base of this disorder.

What will happen during the visit or online?

Your participation will require two parts:

i) Completion of 4 online questionnaires that can be done from home.

ii) Visiting a Lab Service Center, such as Quest, Lab Corp or CPL, near your home for your child to give a small blood sample.

Compensation of $125 is provided upon completion of the study.

How will this help families?

The biomarkers we identify may assist in the development of therapeutic interventions for targeted treatments for autism.

This study is examining whether a non-invasive device called vagus nerve stimulator (VNS) improves symptoms related to intellectual and developmental disability (IDD) and/or autism spectrum disorder (ASD). VNS involves applying mild electrical stimulation through the skin around the neck. The vagus nerve sends communications between the brain and many parts of the body. It regulates many cognitive, emotional and bodily functions. VNS is FDA-approved for headaches in people 12-years and older.

What are the goals of the study?

The purpose of the study is to examine whether a device called vagus nerve stimulator (VNS) can help with autonomic symptoms commonly seen in developmental disabilities, including autism.

What will happen during the visit or online?

The participant will undergo several behavioral, neurocognitive, and EEG tests and attend regularly scheduled study appointments. The study duration will be between 9-11 months, which includes 1, 3, 6-month follow-up appointments.

How will this help families?

Possible improvements in some symptoms related to developmental disabilities and ASD with the use of VNS.

Researchers in Baltimore, MD at Johns Hopkins University and Kennedy Krieger Institute are interested in investigating the underlying neural mechanisms associated with perceiving social interactions. We are recruiting adults (ages 18-35 years) with and without autism. Participation in this study includes a 90–120-minute MRI scan, a 10-minute recall task, a 30-minute IQ assessment, and six questionnaires. Participants with autism will also be asked to complete a 1-hour interview. Participants will be compensated with a $60 VISA gift card at the end of their research appointment.

What are the goals of the study?

The purpose of this study is to investigate the feeding difficulties of infants who are later diagnosed with autism compared to their neurotypical sibling to identify any feeding characteristics that would warrant increased monitoring for autism in infancy.

What will happen during the visit or online?

Completion of a 90-120-minute MRI scan, brief questionnaires, 10-minute recall task and 30-minute IQ assessment

How will this help families?

We are investigating the neural mechanisms underlying perceptions of social interactions which will enable researchers to develop better informed therapies and trainings focused on social skills acquisition

This research study aims to find out more about adults with autism spectrum disorder, including how adults with autism think, how their brains work, and how these things change as they get older.

What are the goals of the study?

The main goal of the study is to understand the aging process in people with autism.

What will happen during the visit or online?

The study involves autism diagnostic evaluation at the SDSU Center for Autism, and a neuropsychological battery testing the individual’s memory, attention span, and other cognitive skills. Participants are also asked to undergo an MRI scan at the SDSU Imaging Center, which allows us to collect information about the brain anatomy and function. Because we are aiming to understand how people with autism age, we hope to repeat this evaluation in about 3-5 years, inviting participants to return for another scan and a set of assessments.

How will this help families?

Participants in this study report that they learn important information about their memory and other cognitive abilities from participating in the study. Broadly, the results of this study should help us understand how people with autism age – something that has not been studied nor well understood thus far.

Six-to-ten year old children with autism spectrum disorders are invited to participate in a fun study, which involves wearing an actigraphy watch for two weeks (to estimate the quality and other characteristics of the child’s sleep) and participation in one MRI session at SDSU Imaging Center. Both children and parents are asked to keep sleep diaries for the two weeks when the child is wearing the actigraphy watch. Finally, children are asked to take part in a brief cognitive testing session. The study aims to understand the links between sleep (problems) and brain development in children with autism.

What are the goals of the study?

This study aims to understand potential mechanisms underlying sleep disturbances in autism.

What will happen during the visit or online?

Children will be asked to wear an actigraphy watch for two weeks, keep sleep diaries, take part in one MRI scan, and complete a brief behavioral assessment session.

How will this help families?

Sleep problems affect 50-80% of individuals with autism and can have cascading effects on development, everyday function, and quality of life. However, the mechanisms underlying sleep disturbances in ASD are not understood. A better insight into the potential mechanisms of sleep disturbances in autism may ultimately help with developing new treatments targeting sleep in children with autism.