Cognitive and Emotional Processing of Social Stimuli in Children and Youth With Autism Spectrum Disorder

University of Tromso (UiT)

Status: Unknown

Conditions: Autism Spectrum Disorder

Treatments: Behavioral: Pictures; Behavioral: Startle eliciting noise

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT01322984

2010/238

Details and patient eligibility

About

Children and youth diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have been shown to react abnormally to social stimuli, especially to human faces. Children and youth with ASD show less interest in social stimuli, and may even avoid looking at or interact with such stimuli. It has been proposed that social stimuli elicit reactions like fear and stress in individuals with ASD, and this explains the lack of interest and avoidance. The present project investigates this hypothesis.

Enrollment: 60 estimated patients

Sex: All

Ages: 7 to 18 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion and exclusion criteria

For ASD group:

Inclusion Criteria:

• Diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders

Trial design

Primary purpose: Basic Science

Allocation: Non-Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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60 participants in 2 patient groups

Normal controls

Active Comparator group

Description:

Normal children and youths

Treatment:

Behavioral: Startle eliciting noise

Behavioral: Pictures

ASD

Experimental group

Description:

Children and youths diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD)

Treatment:

Behavioral: Startle eliciting noise

Behavioral: Pictures