ReviewCureus2026
Effectiveness of Digital Health Technologies in the Management of Autism Spectrum Disorder in Children and Adolescents: A Systematic Review.
Review in Cureus, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Limited access to specialist services, driven by workforce shortages and increasing demand, has constrained timely face-to-face management of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Children and adolescents with ASD frequently engage with digital technologies, prompting growing interest in digital health interventions as potential adjuncts to traditional care; however, their effectiveness remains uncertain. This systematic review aimed to evaluate the evidence from randomised controlled trials assessing digital health interventions for the management of ASD-related symptoms in children and adolescents. Embase, MEDLINE, and Web of Science were searched in March 2023, and findings were synthesised narratively. Twelve randomised controlled trials comprising 622 participants met inclusion criteria, evaluating heterogeneous interventions including tablet- and computer-based applications, web-delivered video-modelling programmes, mobile health interventions, and wearable augmented-reality systems. While results for primary outcomes were mixed, with several trials reporting null findings for core social communication deficits, consistent positive effects were observed for functional and additional outcomes. Specifically, interventions grounded in established behavioural principles demonstrated benefits for receptive language, emotional comprehension, and adolescent vocational skills (e.g. employment interview performance and conflict negotiation). However, few studies directly compared digital interventions with active face-to-face therapies, and the overall risk of bias was mixed largely due to concerns regarding the randomisation process and high risk of bias in outcome measurement stemming from the use of unblinded, subjective parent-reported measures. Digital health interventions, therefore, show promise as adjunctive tools for supporting ASD management in children and adolescents, but larger, longer-term randomised trials across more diverse populations are required to establish their effectiveness, durability, and role alongside conventional ASD services.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.