A Novel Intervention for Training Auditory Attention in Adolescents With Autism Spectrum Disorder

Summary

Background: Previous research has shown that individuals with ASD often have difficulties coping with auditory stimuli in the environment. These difficulties can be extremely debilitating, lead to anxiety and disruptive behaviors, and interfere with the ability to process and understand speech.

Research Design: In previous research, the investigators have identified a brain marker associated with poor auditory attention that can provide a direct readout of auditory processing issues. The investigators will develop and test a cognitive/behavioral intervention (a tablet-based game app) that is highly engaging and accessible to a wide range of individuals with ASD. The intervention is designed to train adolescents with ASD to adapt and attend to auditory cues.

Objectives: To evaluate whether the intervention leads to improvement in auditory attention as assessed by behavior changes over the course of training; to investigate the impact of the intervention on behavioral assessment of problems hearing speech in noisy environments, neural processing of sounds, and changes in parent report on responses to sounds that impact that daily lives of the participants; and finally- to determine which adolescents with ASD benefit the most and least from interventions such as this one.

We hypothesize that we can elicit changes in the neural processing of sounds for adolescents with ASD via training in the form of the tablet-based game we are developing. If we are successful, this could lead to other interventions for persons with ASD in the hopes of improving the auditory difficulties they face.

Conditions

• Autism Spectrum Disorder
• Autism

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

video game training exercise

The game, called "The Silent Service" and developed by our collaborators, is an online game with an underwater theme, and is comprised of 5 distinct mini-games, each of which demands auditory attention. The mission is to navigate an underwater scene, listening and responding to 'sonar' (e.g., an oddball in a stream of sounds). For example, participants may have to respond to an oddball sound stream to protect their submarine from a looming sea monster, while successfully ignoring a distractor sound stream (responses to the distractor sound stream allow the sea monster to damage the submarine). The five games share the same underlying framework of detecting oddballs while ignoring distractors but have unique artwork and 'backstories' to keep players interested. There is a hierarchical reward structure for 'leveling up' across the game that helps players to stay engaged and interested while playing.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Carnegie Mellon University

  collaborator OTHER

• Boston University Charles River Campus

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Helen Tager-Flusberg, PhD · Prinicipal Investigator

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

BASIC_SCIENCE

Masking

SINGLE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

13 Years

Max Age

20 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2021-08-01

Primary Completion

2021-09-30

Completion

2021-09-30

Countries

• United States

Study Locations