Tempe, AZ Paid Clinical Trials

This Randomized Controlled Trial will test the effectiveness of the Parenting in the Moment (PIM) online parenting program for parents with experiences of forced displacement. The primary objective of this study is to conduct a summative (impact) evaluation of the PIM online parenting program as an in-home parent, skill-based program for parents of school-aged children, using a randomized controlled trial research design with community partnerships that inform the research throughout. The longer-term objectives are to build the evidence-base for in-home parent skill-based programs with strong empirical support (i.e., eligible for listing on the Families First Clearinghouse) and increase access to parenting programs for forcibly displaced families thereby improving child safety and wellbeing and strengthening their public health support. 720 families will be recruited with forced migration backgrounds and within 10 years of arrival in the USA; 360 families will be assigned to the PIMonline program and 360 to a family resource list only, wait-list control group. Families will be recruited using stratified random sampling within the four PIM language groups: English, Spanish, Arabic, French. Within each language, half the families will be assigned to the PIMonline intervention program and the other half will be assigned to receiving a Family Resource List with access to the PIMonline program once the study ends. One parent and one child per eligible family may participate. Data collection with participating families will take place at baseline (T1), 4-months after baseline (T2) and finally, 16 months after baseline (T3). Data collection includes caregiver online surveys, caregiver and child Zoom recorded Family Interaction Task conversations and interviewer administered child surveys for children aged 8-12 at each time point. Standardized, reliable and valid measures in the four languages will be used to assess change in outcomes through the surveys. Longitudinal growth curve analysis will be used to test PIM intervention effects. Our extensive dissemination plan involves nationwide community partners in child welfare and services to forcibly displaced families. Read Less

Children with Down syndrome (DS) face life-long struggles with verbal communication. Babble and speech sound development is delayed, and speech can be difficult to understand. Words emerge late, at 21 months on average, compared to 12 months for typical peers, and vocabulary and grammar can remain limited throughout adulthood. Because DS is diagnosed at or even before birth, these difficulties are predictable; yet despite this prognostic knowledge, systematic and sustained proactive interventions have not yet been developed: Most children with DS are not assessed and treated for speech and language delays until age 2 to 4 years. This presents an untapped opportunity space to conduct a clinical trial of a proactive intervention in earliest infancy with the goal of building resilience against the anticipated difficulties. The intervention trialed here is a modified version of Babble Boot Camp (BBC), a proactive speech and language intervention originally developed for young infants with classic galactosemia (CG) (NIH 5R01HD098253). CG is a metabolic disease that, similar to DS, is diagnosed at birth and poses risks for severe speech and language delays. BBC is implemented by a speech-language pathologist who, via telehealth, trains parents to incorporate skill-building activities and routines into their daily lives at home. For the present study, 20 children with DS age birth to 12 months will be recruited and randomized into two treatment arms. One group will receive weekly individualized parent sessions and close monitoring of the child's progress. The second group will receive the same content but at a lower intensity and dosage, via monthly parent group meetings. Both groups will receive their intervention for 10 months. Specific aims are to quantify benefits for babble, speech production, and receptive and expressive language and to investigate associations between conversational dynamics in child-adult interactions and the children's speech and language. Outcomes in speech and language skills will show relative feasibility and benefits for each of these treatment modalities and motivate a larger clinical trial, with the ultimate goal of changing the way infants with DS receive support in their speech and language development, from a deficit-based, remedial model to a proactive one. Read Less

Adolescence is a developmental period of significant risk for anxiety, depressive symptoms, and suicidality, and the investigators propose to target key peer-based risk and protective factors using Cooperative Learning (CL). CL is a small-group instructional approach that can enhance peer relations and reduce peer-related risks, as well as promote academic engagement and achievement and reduce racial disparities. CL will be delivered with the aid of technology that automates the design and delivery of CL lessons, promoting rapid implementation, scalability, high fidelity, accessibility, and sustainability. Read Less

Stuttering negatively impacts communication and reduces the overall quality of life and well-being of individuals who stutter. This study will provide a strong foundation for developing neural and behavioral interventions for stuttering. Participants will be asked to name pictures, read words/sentences silently or aloud, and listen to speech and nonspeech sounds while their speech, muscle, and brain signals are collected. Some participants may also receive brain stimulation while reading and speaking. Read Less

The aim of this research is to develop protocols that selectively target and improve speech-motor learning processes. Participants will be asked to name pictures, read words/sentences, and listen to sounds while their speech signals will be collected during the study. Read Less

The purpose of this study is to test if priming expectations of transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) can improve the efficacy of tDCS in enhancing motor learning. Read Less

The investigators propose to investigate Microbiota Transfer Therapy (MTT) for treating patients with Pitt-Hopkins Syndrome (PTHS) and gastrointestinal problems (constipation, bloating, abdominal pain). MTT involves a combination of 10 days of oral vancomycin (an antibiotic to kill pathogenic bacteria), followed by 1 day of bowel cleanse using magnesium citrate, followed by 4 days of high dose MTP-101P with an antacid, followed by 12 weeks of a lower maintenance dose of MTP-101P with an antacid. Read Less

Patients with hearing loss who use cochlear implants (CIs) show significant deficits and strong unexplained intersubject variability in their perception and production of spoken emotions in speech. This project will investigate the hypothesis that "cue-weighting", or how patients utilize the different acoustic cues to emotion, accounts for significant variance in emotional communication with CIs. The results will focus on children with CIs, but parallel measures in postlingually deaf adults with CIs will be made, ensuring that results of these studies benefit social communication by CI patients across the lifespan by informing the development of technological innovations and improved clinical protocols. Read Less

The goal of this clinical trial is to test the effectiveness of START (Startle Adjuvant Rehabilitation Therapy) in improving arm function after a stroke. The main questions it aims to answer are 1) Does startle rehabilitation therapy improve functional arm performance after training on a specific task and 2) Can training benefits, if any, be seen in other untrained tasks? Researchers will enroll participants across a wide range of upper extremity impairments post-stroke. Participants will be enrolled in three consecutive days of in-person training on an upper extremity task followed by a single-day follow-up session one month after training is completed. Each training session will last for approximately 3 hours per day. Participants will be randomly assigned to one of two groups; 1) Arm training with START and 2) Arm training without START. Study participants and assessors will be blinded to the type of training received. Before the training, participants will be clinically assessed to determine impairment level. During training, participants will be asked to perform; 1) a simulated feed task which involves transferring kidney beans using a spoon from one cup (start position) to another cup (end position) in front of them OR 2) A functional reaching task where participants will maintain a tool (spoon) in their hand while extending their arm forward towards an end position based on the severity of arm impairment as determined by the clinical assessment. Researchers will compare the % change in trained task scores, muscle activity, and arm movement outcome measures at three-time points; baseline on day 1, at the end of training on day 3, and one month after training. Read Less

The study utilizes investigational software, the SPARK Test, with an FDA-cleared electroencephalography (EEG) amplifier and EEG cap to collect and then analyze patient EEG data. Read Less