The study is about identifying in what ways the work-family conflict and quality of life of working parents of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) affect their mental health.
What are the goals of the study?
To determine how parents perceive the role in work and home setting and how those roles effect to mental health and Quality of Life.
What will happen during the visit or online?
Show answers how they perceive about work-family role, mental health, and Quality of Life.
How will this help families?
This study may help to provide psychological support for working parents of children with ASD.
Researchers at Rutgers University are conducting a research study to evaluate a 10-session telehealth-based group therapy program.
What are the goals of the study?
The purpose of this study is to evaluate the feasibility, acceptability and effectiveness of an adapted telehealth Group Behavioral Activation Therapy (GBAT+) for autistic adults. GBAT+ is intended to help adults manage stress, anxiety, low moods, and anger.
What will happen during the visit or online?
Eligible people will be asked to complete questionnaires, 7 individual assessment visits, 5 brief check ins, and 10 group therapy sessions.
How will this help families?
Participants will receive 10 group therapy sessions and be compensated up to $345 for completion of assessments.
Many new parents/guardians of children first diagnosed with autism often feel anxiety about their child’s future. Many of these parents and guardians have lots of questions, such as, “Will my child be able to finish his education? Will my child be able to make friends? Will my child be able to live independently?” etc., which may possibly especially cause increased anxiety if these parents and guardians do not have the proper perceived social support that may be able to help them along the way. This in turn may affect the way these children are parented and raised and can make a great difference in the children’s lives.
What are the goals of the study?
To determine the relationship between perceived social support and future anxiety among Hispanic guardians of a child (2-18-years-old) diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) residing in the United States
What will happen during the visit or online?
30-60 minutes of participation for the online assessment.
How will this help families?
Participants may benefit from being validated about their experiences with their child who has recently been diagnosed with ASD and will receive resources for support as needed.
Emotion dysregulation (ED) in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) exacerbates social impairment, increases risk for psychiatric and behavioral problems, and often leads to polypharmacy, crisis interventions, and high rates of suicidality. Effective treatment of ED could greatly reduce morbidity and costs and significantly improve quality of life for individuals with ASD. The Emotion Dysregulation Inventory (EDI) is a caregiver report for children ages 6-17 years old that measures rapidly escalating, intense, and poorly regulated negative emotion and dysphoria. However, there are no existing self-report measures of ED validated in adolescents and adults with ASD. Currently, best practice for assessment of emotional and behavioral constructs in ASD is the use of multiple reporters, but this approach is more challenging for adults with ASD when a parent is no longer available or as involved in daily life. Although adults are the fastest growing segment of the ASD population, there has been limited treatment research focused on adults. The EDI-SR would be the first self-report of ED in ASD. It will be developed through a systematic item refinement process to ensure validity, thereby generating a new opportunity to incorporate patient-reported experiences and outcomes in an overlooked and growing group of adults with ASD. The availability of validated self-report of ED is particularly crucial to address gaps in evidence-based treatment for adults with ASD. Dr. Carla A. Mazefsky at the University of Pittsburgh is conducting this research study.
What are the goals of the study?
With this project, we aim to develop and validate a change-sensitive self-report measure of ED for adolescents and adults with ASD, called the Emotion Dysregulation Inventory-Self-Report (EDI-SR).
What will happen during the visit or online?
This study will occur entirely online and will take less than an hour for participants to complete. Participants will be able to pause and resume the questionnaires at any point. They will be paid $75 for completion of surveys. There are no travel requirements. Overall, it is low burden study. Participants may be invited back 4 weeks later for a single survey re-test for an additional $10.
How will this help families?
Although adults are the fastest growing segment of the ASD population, there has been limited treatment research focused on adults. Support for ED is a major unaddressed need for adults with ASD. Studies consistently identify ED as one of the top barriers in college, and adults with ASD and their parents identify mental health as a top priority for research. Therefore, the availability of validated self-report of ED is particularly crucial to address gaps in evidence-based treatment for adults with ASD.
The goal of this project is to establish how our current professional understanding of autism matches with and/or clashes with social media depictions of autism, so that (1) clinicians understand how online experiences might impact their patients’ conceptions about autism, and perhaps themselves, and so that (2) consumers of social media have guidance as they seek information. The study team is made up of Seaver Autism Center researchers, and we decided to put together this project after hearing from our participants and seeing for ourselves the wide range of autism-related content on TikTok.
What are the goals of the study?
We are looking into how people feel about current social media perceptions of Autism. Everyone’s feeds are different and everyone’s relationship with ASD is different, so we want to gather information from people with different perspectives and report back so everyone can enjoy their feeds with a little more big-picture understanding of the strengths and dangers of this content. We also want to have autism professionals weigh in on autism symptoms mentioned in top-performing videos, so the general public can have some guidance on what symptoms are more or less related to autism.
What will happen during the visit or online?
You will fill out an anonymous survey that will take anywhere between 2 and 10 minutes.
How will this help families?
Representation is so important. With over a billion users worldwide, TikTok has a tremendous impact on the way outsiders and people in the autism community are thinking about autism. The study team hopes that this study can provide more context and guidance for content consumers.
The purpose of the current study is to investigate whether adults with a diagnosis of autism tend to display more notable deficits in certain areas of competency measurement than others as measured by their performance on the MacArthur Competence Assessment Tool-Criminal Adjudication (MacCAT-CA) and the Judgment In Legal Contexts (JILC) Instrument, as well as look at the impact that theory of mind (as measured by the A-ToM [Adult-Theory of Mind] instrument) and measured intelligence (derived from previous IQ testing) may have on competence-related abilities. A trained doctoral student will facilitate study session procedures via Zoom. This study seeks to contribute to the scarce research on the unique effects of autism on competence-related abilities.
What are the goals of the study?
The researcher will explore whether this population displays a notable pattern in scores on the various facets of competency to stand trial. Deficits in theory of mind will be explored in terms of their relation to performance on competency measures. This information will collectively help inform the relationship between autism and competency to stand trial and perhaps be used to inform improved competency evaluations and procedures for this population in the future.
What will happen during the visit or online?
Results of previous IQ testing will be requested directly from the participant (no contact with their medical providers). If the participant is unable/unwilling to obtain and share this information with the researcher, the abbreviated version of the WASI-II will be administered to obtain an estimate of their IQ. On Zoom, participants will be administered the A-ToM, MacCAT-CA, and JILC. The A-ToM requires participants to view a series of videos and provide verbal responses to a series of prompts. The MacCAT-CA and JILC are both interview-style measures.
How will this help families?
The information collected in this study will help inform the relationship between autism and competency to stand trial and perhaps be used to inform improved competency evaluations and procedures for this population in the future.
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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.
The purpose of this study is to identify relationships between social identity (including LGBT identity), social camouflaging (“masking”), and well-being in autistic adults. It is well documented that masking behavior is associated with poor mental health outcomes for autistic adults, but little to no research has addressed the effects of masking on autistic adults who are members of other marginalized groups.
What are the goals of the study?
This study seeks to address whether the similar roles of masking among autistic and queer individuals result in trends in masking behavior for the large segment of the autistic adult population that identifies as LGBT.
What will happen during the visit or online?
The study consists of a 20-minute Qualtrics survey that asks demographic questions and uses several validated measures to determine respondents’ social identities, levels of masking across those identities (specifically autistic identity, sexuality, and gender), and recent depressive symptoms.
How will this help families?
The relationship between masking and well-being is increasingly well documented in academic literature on autism. This study will lay the groundwork for future research on how masking influence well-being in multiply marginalized autistic individuals.
Researchers at Seattle Children’s are looking for caregivers of 2 to 12 year old children without autism spectrum disorder or challenging behaviors (e.g., aggression, destruction) that require intervention to take part in an online survey study and an optional in-person EEG visit. Parents will be compensated with a $50 gift card for completing the questionnaires and a $50 gift card for completing the in-person visit.
What are the goals of the study?
The goal of this study is to study parent and child problem-solving and emotions in an intervention that includes parents.
What will happen during the visit or online?
Parents will complete an online survey (about 30 minutes) about their and their child’s problem-solving and emotions and in a one-time in-person EEG and cognitive visit that includes problem-solving and other tasks.
How will this help families?
The study is being done to learn more about parents’ emotion and mental processes.
Researchers at the Ohio State University are currently looking for children and caregivers to participate in a study examining child report of depressive symptoms, anxiety symptoms and social support. If your child is between the ages of 10 and 17 years and has a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder, you may be eligible to participate in this study. This study aims to examine self-report measures of internalizing symptoms and social support to improving screening and intervention outcome measures.
What are the goals of the study?
The primary objective is to examine psychometric properties of measures of anxiety, depression and social support in youth with ASD age 10-17. The secondary aim is to examine the relationship between peer, parental, and teacher social support and internalizing disorders in ASD.
What will happen during the visit or online?
The child participant and an accompanying parent will participate in two zoom visits. The duration of the first visit would be about 1 hour. The second visit would occur two weeks after the first and would be about 30 minutes long. The visits would consist of interview and survey questions. Participants would be emailed a $10 Amazon gift card after completion of the first visit, and a $20 gift card after completion of the second.
How will this help families?
Having validated self-report measures on internalizing symptoms and social support in ASD will help us better screen for youth that may need intervention, as well as measure how effective interventions are. As youth with ASD often have a fewer number of friendships, understanding how social support from different people (parents, teachers, friends) relate to mental health symptoms will help inform target areas of intervention.
