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Shaping Tolerance for Delayed Rewards

NCT03457402 · Status: RECRUITING · Phase: NA · Type: INTERVENTIONAL · Enrollment: 50

Last updated 2025-07-14

No results posted yet for this study

Summary

Deficits in self-control are of major public health relevance as they contribute to several negative outcomes for both individuals and society. For children, developing self-control is a critically important step toward success in academic settings and social relationships, yet there are few non-pharmacological approaches that have been successful in increasing self-control. We found in our earlier studies that self-control can be increased in preschool-aged children with high impulsivity by using games in which they practice gradually increasing wait-time for larger, more delayed rewards. We are performing this current study to test if this training to increase self-control can be increased using mobile app technology, with computerized game time being used as a reward.

Conditions

  • Impulsivity

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Shaping Delay Tolerance

Participants will be introduced to an adaptive tablet-based application that asks the child to choose between two options: 1) a shorter duration of game play that begins immediately, or 2) a longer duration of game play that begins after a delay. Depending on the child's choices, the application alters the pre-reward delay with the intent of training the child to tolerate longer delays for larger rewards (i.e., more game play). Children may participate in up to 25 approximately 30-minute training sessions over 3-6 weeks.

Sponsors & Collaborators

  • Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD)

    collaborator NIH

  • University of California, Davis

    lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

  • Julie Schweitzer, Ph.D. · UC Davis MIND Institute

Study Design

Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Purpose
BASIC_SCIENCE
Masking
SINGLE
Model
PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age
3 Years
Max Age
6 Years
Sex
ALL
Healthy Volunteers
No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start
2017-09-12
Primary Completion
2026-05-31
Completion
2026-05-31

Countries

  • United States

Study Locations

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Read the full study record

This page highlights key information. For complete eligibility criteria, study locations, investigator contacts, and the full protocol, visit the original record on ClinicalTrials.gov.

View NCT03457402 on ClinicalTrials.gov