Computer aided therapy to promote motor development in autistic users

• Research type

  Research Study

• Full title

  Computerised Motor Skills Training to Promote Language Development in Non- Verbal Children with Autism

• IRAS ID

  209775

• Contact name

  Matthew Belmonte

• Contact email

  belmonte@mit.edu

• Sponsor organisation

  Cambridgeshire & Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust

• Duration of Study in the UK

  1 years, 6 months, 0 days

• Research summary

  This study will test whether parents can be trained to use iPad software called Point Outwords with their children with autism spectrum disorder; to a standard that is required for the software to help these children improve their motor and communicative skills.
  Autism spectrum disorders are lifelong conditions, affecting approximately 1% of the population, many of whom are non-verbal. Ours and others' research has demonstrated that in a sizeable subgroup of autistic children – in our own clinical sample this subgroup comprises fully one third of all those autistic children who lack communicative speech – there is a strong association between language delay and impaired motor skills such as pointing. By getting children to interact with the Point OutWords software on a tablet computer, under the supervision of their parents, we will be able to investigate whether the children’s motor skills such as pointing and dragging at objects, show a positive relationship with their communication skills.

  The proposed feasibility study will evaluate our ability to recruit and to retain sufficient numbers of children in the target population for whom Point OutWords could be effective, families' ability to accept and to use Point OutWords as recommended, and the practicality for families and utility for experimental science of several tests that could be used to measure improvements produced by Point OutWords.

  We will recruit children, to take part in the study with their parents, from the NHS service in the Cambridge/Peterborough area. We will collect data about how parents are using the Point OutWords app with their children by observing them either in an NHS clinic or in their homes. We will seek written and verbal feedback from parents about how they experience using the software with their children.

• REC name

  East Midlands - Nottingham 2 Research Ethics Committee

• REC reference

  18/EM/0068

• Date of REC Opinion

  29 Nov 2018

• REC opinion

  Further Information Favourable Opinion