ClinicalTrials.gg
Status unknownNCT03348982Updated Dec 6, 2017

Examining the Association Between Physical Activity and Sleep Quality in Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder

An interventional study of Jogging program in Physical Activity, Sleep Apnea and Autism Spectrum Disorder, sponsored by The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Status unknown. Open to participants aged 9 Years to 12 Years. Per ClinicalTrials.gov, last updated 2017-12-06.

Primary conditionSleep Apnea SyndromesRegistry: Motor ActivityReclassifiedWhy we changed it
Registry
Motor Activity — the first condition term the registry derived for this study.
ClinicalTrials.gg
Sleep Apnea Syndromes
Why
  1. Motor Activity is a broad heading, used only when no more specific condition is named.
  2. The study's listed conditions name Sleep Apnea Syndromes.
Confidence
High: the new condition is named in the study's own listed conditions. Of 351 hand-checked studies reclassified this way, 68% were exactly right and 84% in the right disease family; the registry's first term was right for 5% (measured 2026-10-21). How we classify →
Wrong?
Tell us the study's main condition →

Sponsored by The Hong Kong Polytechnic University · Not applicable, Interventional, and Treatment

The sponsor has not verified this record recently (last verified Nov 2017), so the status shown — last known as Not yet recruiting — may be out of date.
Phase
Not applicable
Study type
Interventional
Enrollment
32
Allocation
Randomized
Ages
9 Years to 12 Years
Sex
All
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Study summary

This study aims to investigate whether physical activity intervention would be effective to improve sleep quality in children with ASD, and investigate how physical activity impacts on sleep in children with ASD through melatonin-mediated mechanism model. A parallel-group randomized controlled trial comparing a 12-week jogging intervention and a control group receiving standard care in 32 children with ASD will be conducted. This study will monitor the changes of four sleep parameters (sleep onset latency; sleep efficiency, wake after sleep onset and sleep duration) through objective actigraphic assessment and parental sleep logs.

Read the detailed description

Sleep disturbance is commonly found in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and is often accompanied with family distress. Disturbed sleep may exacerbate the core symptoms of ASD including stereotypic behaviors, social interactions, and health problems. Therefore, it is important to develop effective intervention strategies to ameliorate the sleep disturbance in children with ASD. Traditionally, behavioral interventions and supplemental melatonin medication are used to improve their sleep quality. However, poor sustainability of behavioral intervention effects and use of other medications (e.g. antidepressants and stimulants) that metabolize melatonin may degrade the effectiveness of these interventions. Alternatively, previous research supported physical activity intervention as an effective treatment on sleep disturbance for typically developing children who suffered from sleep disturbance. It is therefore natural to extend the study to examine whether such intervention is also effective in children with ASD. This study aims to investigate whether physical activity intervention would be effective to improve sleep quality in children with ASD. Moreover, how physical activity impacts on sleep in children with ASD through melatonin-mediated mechanism model will also be investigated. According to this mechanism model, it is suggested that physical activity could affect circadian rhythm through altering melatonin level. Melatonin is generally lower in ASD children than in their typically developing counterparts and supplemental melatonin medication is often used to treat the sleep disturbance in this population. This study is a parallel-group randomized controlled trial comparing a 12-week jogging intervention and a control group receiving standard care in 32 children with ASD. The changes of four sleep parameters (sleep onset latency; sleep efficiency, wake after sleep onset and sleep duration) through objective actigraphic assessment and parental sleep logs will be monitored. To measure melatonin level, all participants will be instructed to collect a 24-h urinary sample. 6-sulfatoxymelatonin, a creatinine-adjusted morning urinary melatonin and representative for melatonin level, will be measured from the collected urine sample. All the assessments will be carried out before the intervention (T1), immediately after the 12 weeks of physical activity intervention or regular treatment (T2), and 12 weeks after post-intervention (T3) for examination of sustained intervention effect. The findings of this proposed study can provide information on the mechanism pathway that physical activity impacts on sleep in children with ASD, which will contribute to the design of an effective intervention to improve sleep quality for children with ASD.

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Conditions studied

  • Physical Activity
  • Sleep Apnea
  • Autism Spectrum Disorder

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Keywords

  • Physical activity
  • Sleep
  • Children
  • Autism Spectrum Disorder
  • Melatonin
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In context

Sleep Apnea Syndromes Reclassified

1,084 studies on the registry are indexed under Sleep Apnea Syndromes; 171 are open to participants now.

This study's planned enrollment of 32 is below the median of 60 across 673 interventional studies indexed under Sleep Apnea Syndromes.

Browse Sleep Apnea Syndromes studies →

Lead sponsor

The Hong Kong Polytechnic University is the lead sponsor of 679 studies on the registry; 257 are open to participants now.

Compared within Sleep Apnea Syndromes, this study's primary condition as ClinicalTrials.gg classifies it; the registry's first condition term is Motor Activity. The counts are of registry records indexed under each term, refreshed daily. How we classify →

04

Who can participate

Ages eligible
9 Years to 12 Years
Sexes eligible
All
Accepts healthy volunteers
No

Go through the criteria one by one — yes, no or not sure — and take the list to your doctor or the study team. Kept in this browser only.

Inclusion criteria

  • pre-puberty or early puberty as indicated by Tanner stage I or II ;
  • ASD diagnosis from a physician based on , 5th edition, (DSM-V)[42]
  • non-verbal IQ over 40
  • the ability to follow instructions;
  • physically able to participate in the intervention
  • no additional regular participation in physical exercise other than school physical education classes for at least 6 months prior to the study
  • no concurrent medication for at least 6 months before the study or any prior melatonin treatment;
  • have sleep difficulties, including sleep onset insomnia and frequent and prolonged nightwaking and/or early morning awakenings reported by parents

Exclusion criteria

Exclusion Criteria:

  • with one or co-morbid psychiatric disorders as established by a structured interview based on
  • with other medical conditions that limit their physical activity capacities (e.g., asthma, seizure, cardiac disease);
  • with a complex neurologic disorder (e.g., epilepsy, phenylketonuria, fragile X syndrome, tuberous sclerosis)
Terms in these criteria, in plain language(1)

Underlined terms in the criteria open these too. Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.

DSM diagnostic criteria

The American Psychiatric Association’s manual of mental health diagnoses. DSM-5 (2013, revised as DSM-5-TR in 2022) replaced DSM-IV, and some studies still name the older edition. “Meets DSM criteria for …” means diagnosed by that edition’s diagnostic criteria, usually by a clinician in an interview.

05

Study design

Phase
Not applicable
Primary purpose
Treatment
Allocation
Randomized
Intervention model
Parallel assignment
Masking
None (open label)
Enrollment
32 participants (estimated)

Study arms

  • Experimental
    Intervention group

    The intervention is a 12-week jogging program consisting of 24 sessions (two sessions per week, 30 min per session) in a hall/gymnasium of each participating school.Each intervention session will be conducted in the morning by a trained research assistant assisted by student helpers. Each intervention session will be conducted in an identical format, comprising three activities: warm-up (5 min), jogging (20 min), and cool-down (5 min). In the jogging activity, participants will be asked to jog side-by-side with the research staff around an activity circuit (57m x 50m) marked with 4 red cones.

    Behavioral: Jogging program

  • No intervention
    Control group

    Participants in the control group will receive no physical intervention and will be required to follow their daily routine without participating in any additional physical activity/exercise program throughout the whole study period (T1-T3).

Interventions

  • BehavioralJogging program

    The intervention is a 12-week jogging program consisting of 24 sessions (two sessions per week, 30 min per session).

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What researchers measure

Primary outcomes

  1. Sleep onset latency

    Sleep onset latency (length of time taken to fall asleep, expressed in minutes, SOL) will be objectively measured by a GT3X accelerometer.

    Time frame: 12-week

  2. Sleep efficiency

    Sleep efficiency (actual sleep time divided by time in bed, expressed as a percent, SE) will be objectively measured by a GT3X accelerometer.

    Time frame: 12-week

  3. Wake after sleep onset

    Wake after sleep onset (length of time they were awake after sleep onset, expressed in minutes, WASO) will be objectively measured by a GT3X accelerometer.

    Time frame: 12-week

  4. Sleep duration

    sleep duration (total sleep in hours and minutes, SD) will be objectively measured by a GT3X accelerometer.

    Time frame: 12-week

  5. Parental-assessed sleep quality

    Participants' sleep patterns will be logged by their parents using Children's Sleep Habits Questionnaire (CSHQ), which is a validated 45-item parent-administered questionnaire to examine sleep patterns of young children. The total score ranged from 45 to 135.

    Time frame: 12-week

  6. Melatonin

    All participants will be instructed to collect a 24-h urine sample. 6-sulfatoxymelatonin, a creatinine-adjusted morning urinary melatonin and representative of melatonin level, will be measured from the sample. The weekend has been chosen to allow the participants to stay at home for sample collection. All urine samples will be collected using 24-h urine bottles containing 0.1L of 0.5M hydrochloric acid as a preservative.

    Time frame: 12-week

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Study locations

No study locations are listed for this record.

08

References and documents

Publications

  • Tse ACY, Lee PH, Zhang J, Lai EWH. Study protocol for a randomised controlled trial examining the association between physical activity and sleep quality in children with autism spectrum disorder based on the melatonin-mediated mechanism model. BMJ Open. 2018 Apr 13;8(4):e020944. doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2017-020944. PubMed 29654045 ↗

Individual participant data

Plan to share: Undecided

09

Timeline

Tracking since Sep 25, 2026
ElapsedEstimatedEstimated, not yet reachedSimilar studies: half by the dot; the band is the middle halfHalf of similar studies reached it by the dot; the band is the middle half, from a quarter to three quarters

Start is estimated for Jan 2018; primary completion for Jun 2019, 17 months later.

Of 200 non-industry interventional studies with no phase under Sleep Apnea Syndromes, half reached primary completion within 42 months of starting (the median), counting those still running; a quarter within 15 and three quarters within 60. This study's planned 17 months is below that.

Counting every sponsor, half of 268 studies reached it within 26 months; a quarter within 11 and three quarters within 56.

How these figures are worked out, and which studies are left out of them.

Registered
Nov 9, 2017
First posted
Nov 21, 2017
StartEst.
Jan 2018
Primary completionEst.
Jun 2019
CompletionEst.
Jun 2019
Last update
Dec 6, 2017
What these dates mean
Start.
When the first participant enrolled; while estimated, when the study expects to open to recruitment.
Primary completion.
When the last participant was examined or treated to collect data for the study's main question, its primary outcome. A study that stopped early gives the date its data collection stopped.
Completion.
When the last participant's last visit took place, for every outcome, secondary ones and side effects included: the end of the study. Often later than primary completion, sometimes the same day.
Actual and Est.
Actual means the registry says the date has happened. Est. (estimated) is a date the sponsor plans or expects. It can still move, and the sponsor is expected to change it to actual once it has passed.
No changes since tracking began. The registry record was last updated on Dec 6, 2017, before this site started recording changes on Sep 25, 2026. Its history is on ClinicalTrials.gov ↗
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Registry details

Key details

Study ID
NCT03348982
Responsible party
Sponsor
First posted
Nov 21, 2017
Start date
Jan 2018 (estimated)
Primary completion
Jun 2019 (estimated)
Completion
Jun 2019 (estimated)
Last update
Dec 6, 2017

Study contacts

Andy CY Tse, PhD
Contact
andytcy@eduhk.hk
29488074
Paul H Lee, PhD
Contact
paul.h.lee@polyu.edu.hk
34008275

Oversight

Data monitoring committee
No
FDA-regulated drug
No
FDA-regulated device
No
View the source record on ClinicalTrials.gov ↗

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This study is status unknown, as verified in Nov 2017. You cannot join it, but the record below documents what was studied.

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