Taking peopleNo phase

Sound and touch added to action watching in children with cerebral palsy

Compares brain responses to watching movements with and without sound and touch, in children.

Key facts

Who runs it: IRCCS Fondazione Stella Maris
Where: Italy1 site in 1 countryChoose a country to see its sites
Trial code: NCT07369193
Registry title: Immersive AOT: Multisensory Stimulation and Neurophysiological Correlates in Children With Cerebral Palsy and Typical Development - A Pilot Study
Status: Recruiting
People taking part: 40 people, planned
Started: 19 Jan 2026
Expected to end: Jun 2027
Type of study: Observational, 2 groups
Record updated: 2 April 2026

Who can take part

AI summary

From the trial's eligibility criteria. Machine-read from the registry text on this page, so it can be wrong. The registry text below and the trial team decide who can take part.

The trial is looking for children and young people with cerebral palsy, and for typically developing peers of similar age as a control group. It studies brain activity on EEG while they watch movement videos with or without sound and touch.

Age: 7 to 25 years
Sex: All sexes
Disease stage: Study group: confirmed diagnosis of cerebral palsy, shown by clinical history and instrumental examinations. Control group: no neurological or psychiatric disorders and no motor problems.
Biomarker or test result: Study group: at least one verbal or nonverbal intellectual functioning index >= 70. Control group: Raven's Progressive Matrices scores in the normal range, and a score above the 25th percentile on the MABC-2 movement test.

Main reasons for not taking part

Severe sensory disorders that make the study not feasible
Other neuropsychiatric conditions that prevent taking part
Control group: intellectual disability or significant learning difficulties
Control group: known neurological or psychiatric disorders
Control group: motor impairments

The registry criteria, word for word

Show all 11 criteriaShow less

Who cannot take part

Severe sensory disorders that compromise the feasibility of the study
Absence of known neurological or psychiatric disorders, confirmed through parental interview
Age between 7 and 25 years at the time of recruitment
Absence of intellectual disability, assessed through age-appropriate versions of the Raven's Progressive Matrices (Coloured Progressive Matrices for children up to 11 years; Standard Progressive Matrices for participants aged 12 years and older), yielding scores within the normative range and used to estimate non-verbal fluid intelligence
Age-appropriate academic performance with no reports of significant learning difficulties, as verified through parental interview
Neuropsychiatric comorbidity that precludes participation in the study; Control group: Inclusion Criteria
Absence of motor impairments, defined as scoring above the 25th percentile on the Movement Assessment Battery for Children, Second Edition (MABC-2)

Other criteria

Study Group: Inclusion Criteria:
Confirmed diagnosis of cerebral palsy, documented by clinical history and instrumental examinations
Age between 7 and 25 years at the time of recruitment
At least one verbal or nonverbal intellectual functioning index >= 70, to ensure understanding and compliance with the tasks required

Check if you might fit

Answer for yourself. This is not a decision: only the study team can say whether you can take part.

Are you between 7 and 25 years old?

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About the trial

What the trial wants to find out

The discovery of the Mirror Neuron System (MNS) has promoted the development of rehabilitation techniques such as Action Observation Treatment (AOT) and Motor Imagery (MI). These are based on the principle that neural circuits active during execution, also activate during the observation or imagination of movements. These techniques have been found to be effective in several clinical populations including children with Cerebral Palsy (CP), the most common childhood-onset motor disorder. We hypothesize that a multimodal version of AOT, integrating not only visual stimuli (standard practice) but also auditory and tactile stimuli, could further enhance the activation of the MNS. In fact, everyday actions naturally involve multiple sensory channels, and evidence indicate that audio-visual action observation activates the MNS more intensely than visual stimuli alone, thus offering a potential improvement for CP rehabilitation.

Read full original descriptionShow less

The primary aim of this observational pilot study, conducted at IRCCS Fondazione Stella Maris, is to verify whether a multisensory (=immersive) AO session - combining visual, auditory, and tactile stimuli - produces greater activation of the MNS, than a traditional session (visual AO alone). Neural correlates will be measured through high-density Electroencephalography (hdEEG), with a specific focus on the modulation of the sensorimotor mu rhythm. Twenty children and adolescents with CP, aged 7-25 years, and 20 typically developing (TD) aged-matched peers will be recruited in the study. The study also aims to assess the level of participants' attention during stimuli presentation through eye tracking, and to verify whether immersive AO can influence MI abilities, measured through specific tasks and questionnaires (i.e., Motor Imagery Questionnaire for Children (MIQ-C, aged 7-12) and the Motor Imagery Questionnaire - 3 (MIQ-3) for adolescent). In an initial phase of the study both questionnaires will be the validated in a separate sample of 120 TD Italian children and 120 Italian adolescents or adults. The absence of intellectual disability will be assessed using the age-appropriate version of Raven's Progressive Matrices test.

Each participant will undergo two EEG sessions: the immersive session will consist of watching first-person videos accompanied by auditory stimuli consistent with the action and tactile stimuli provided by TouchDIVER Pro haptic gloves (Weart, CE-marked device), suitably adapted for the paediatric population. The traditional session will consist of watching videos without sounds or any tactile additional stimulus. The two sessions will be performed in a in random order. In both sessions, after the observation phase, participants will be asked to perform or imagine the same actions presented in the videos. During observation, eye movements and gaze behavior will be monitored using an eye tracking system. Throughout each session, cortical activity will be recorded using a 128-channel hdEEG net. The sessions will be video-recorded to accurately monitor participants motor behavior, response times, and compliance with the protocol.

At the end of each EEG session, participants will be administered the MIQ-C or MIQ-3 questionnaire and a short task to assess MI abilities. In this task, participants will watch some of the videos previously used during the EEG session and will then be asked to imagine the same action. In this case, their imagery will be interrupted at specific time points, and they will be asked to select, from two images, the moment of the action corresponding to the point at which they were interrupted.

Data analysis will examine within- and between-groups differences for the immersive AO vs the traditional AO. Correlation analysis will be also performed between neurophysiological data, attentional data, questionnaires, MI responses and standardized clinical assessments ( for the CP group), in order to understand how the participants' motor and cognitive abilities influence the activation of the circuits involved in the experimental tasks.

The 2 groups in the trial

Group 1 (Study Group)
20 participants aged 7-25 years diagnosed with Cerebral Palsy (CP)
Group 2 (Control Group)
20 participants with typical development (TD) aged 7-25