Recruiting

Observational Study

Sponsor:

UCLA

Code:

NCT03457402

Conditions

Impulsivity

Eligibility Criteria

Sex: All

Age: 3 - 6

Healthy Volunteers: Not accepted

Interventions

Shaping Delay Tolerance

Study Details

Brief 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

Study ID

NCT03457402

Start date

Sep 12, 2017

Status verified date

Jun, 2026

Completion date

Aug, 2026

Anticipated

Primary completion date

Aug, 2026

Anticipated

Eligibility Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

Sex: All

Age: 3 - 6

Healthy Volunteers: Not accepted

Inclusion Criteria:

  • Age 3-6 years
  • Hyperactivity/Impulsivity subscale scores of the ADHD Rating Scale-IV Preschool Version (children 3 to 4 years of age) or the Attention and Behavior Scale (children 5 to 6 years of age) ≥ 90th percentile from either the parent or teacher's responses
  • Physically and visually able to use the tablet, as determined by pre-assessment performance
  • Children taking psychotropic medication will be included, but must maintain the same medication and dose over the course of the study and for each assessment and exhibit elevated levels of impulsivity based on parent or teacher ratings while medicated.

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Children with autism spectrum disorder and/or intellectual disability (by parent or teacher report or the NIH Toolbox Picture Vocabulary Test).

Study Design

Enrollment

50 participants

Anticipated

Allocation

Randomized

Intervention Model

Parallel Assignment

Primary purpose

Basic Science

Interventions and Outcome Measures

Arms

experimental: Treatment

Participants in the Experimental arm will begin the Shaping Delay Tolerance behavioral intervention immediately after baseline, and this training will last for about 6 weeks.

active comparator: Wait-list Control

After baseline, participants in the Wait-list Control arm will wait for about 6-weeks before entering the pre-treatment phase, which is a repeat of effortful control assessments and behavior questionnaires, and then they will begin training for with the Shaping Delay Tolerance behavioral intervention.

Interventions

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.

Primary outcome measure

  • Indifference point [ Time Frame: Up to 6 weeks ]
  • Percent change in preference for longer, larger (LL) rewards [ Time Frame: Up to 6 weeks ]

Central Contacts and Locations

Central contacts

Samantha Blair, PhD

916-703-0325hs-airlab@ucdavis.edu

Shannon Hoffman, DPT

916-703-0258hs-airlab@ucdavis.edu

Locations

UC Davis MIND Institute

Recruiting

Sacramento, California, United States, 95817

Contacts

Ryan Shickman, B.S.

916-703-0294rdshickman@ucdavis.edu

Shannon Hoffman, DPT

916-703-0294slhoffman@ucdavis.edu

More Information

Sponsor

University of California, Davis

Last update posted

Jun 4, 2026

Last verified

Jun, 2026

Keywords

  • delay discounting
  • shaping

Trial information was received from ClinicalTrials.gov and was last updated on 2026-09-10. This information was provided to ClinicalTrials.gov by University of California, Davis on 2026-06-04.