Motivation for Daily Living Skills

Summary

The goal of this clinical trial is to enhance motivation to complete daily living skills among 16 to 25-year-old autistic teens and young adults. Here are the main questions the trial aims to answer:

Can this trial improve motivation to complete daily living skills for skills that people know how to do but struggle to do them consistently?

Can this trial improve completion of the daily living skill that the participant identifies they want to do more often?

Do people report feeling more empowered to complete the daily living skill they want to do more often?

Are there any characteristics of a person that make them more or less likely to benefit from the treatment?

Researchers will compare treatments that target different types of motivation:

* One treatment focuses on internal motivation and explores what is important to someone and then connect that value back to their daily living skill goal.
* A second treatment focuses on external motivation and will explore a person finding outside sources of motivation, like rewards.
* A third treatment will use a combination of both methods.

Autistic teens and young adults enrolled in this study will also be asked to choose someone in their life to be involved in the study with them. This person is called an "Important Person" (IP) and can be anyone close to them, like a family member, friend, roommate, partner, etc. The IP will be expected to support the teen/young adult throughout this treatment.

Participants and their IPs will:

* Complete five 'talk' therapy sessions that will last 60 to 90 minutes. The IPs will join the last 15 minutes of each session)
* Be assigned to one of the three motivation treatments
* Fill out questionnaires before the first session, after sessions 2 through 5, and 2 weeks after therapy ends

Conditions

• Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)
• Motivation

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Intrinsic Motivation Treatment

The Intrinsic Motivation treatment utilizes principles of Motivational Interviewing to help autistic young adults increase their desire and completion of daily living skills. This is a five-session intervention. Each clinical session is 60 minutes long. The goals of the treatment are to enhance motivation and behavior change.

BEHAVIORAL

Extrinsic Motivation Treatment

The Extrinsic Motivation treatment utilizes behavioral principles to help autistic adolescents and young adults create reward schedules and behavioral tracking sheets to enhance desire and completion of daily living skills. This is a five-session intervention. Each clinical session is 60 minutes long. The goals of the treatment are to enhance motivation and behavior change.

BEHAVIORAL

Combined Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation Treatment

The Combined Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation treatment combines elements of both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation treatments to enhance desire and completion of daily living skills. This is a five-session intervention. Each clinical session is 60-90 minutes long. The goals of the treatment are to enhance motivation and behavior change.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Children's Hospital of Philadelphia

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Benjamin E Yerys, PhD · Children's Hospital of Philadelphia

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

TREATMENT

Masking

SINGLE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

16 Years

Max Age

25 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2025-09-15

Primary Completion

2027-02-28

Completion

2027-02-28

Countries

• United States

Study Locations