Novel Outcome Measures in ASD — Request for Applications

Grants awarded through this RFA were intended to develop and validate outcome measures that are suitable for use in intervention studies that target the core symptoms of autism spectrum disorder. Such measures should provide objective data with strong psychometric properties, be scalable for use in large, multisite studies, not be unduly burdensome to participants and families, and have evident clinical relevance. They would ideally capture naturalistic rather than laboratory behavior and be applicable to subjects across a wide range of ages and levels of functioning.

Important Dates
  • RFA Announced
  • Webex Informational Sessions
    January 25 and
  • Notice of Intent Due
  • Full Applications Due
  • Notice of Award
  • Funding Begins
Important Dates
  • RFA Announced
  • Webex Informational Sessions
    January 25 and
  • Notice of Intent Due
  • Full Applications Due
  • Notice of Award
  • Funding Begins
Contact Info
Read More
Important Dates
  • RFA Announced
  • Webex Informational Sessions
    January 25 and
  • Notice of Intent Due
  • Full Applications Due
  • Notice of Award
  • Funding Begins
Contact Info

Intervention studies for autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are hampered by a lack of reliable and sensitive measures to assess treatment response, whether the interventions are behavioral or pharmacological in approach. Instead, treatment research commonly relies on subjective parent- and clinician-reported assessments that show inadequate psychometric properties, are highly susceptible to placebo effects, and may not be specific to ASD-related impairments. Some semi-objective clinician-administered measures are available, but these remain early in development or are not specific to ASD. A few objective measures, such as eye-tracking, have been used as treatment outcomes, but the psychometric properties and clinical meaningfulness of these measures have not been demonstrated adequately.

Objective outcome measures that are both reliable and sensitive to change would permit smaller and shorter studies and would help to minimize false-negative results. The greater statistical power afforded by such measures would also facilitate studies in subpopulations that might be more likely to benefit from a specific treatment approach.

A previous request for applications (RFA) for novel outcome measures research was issued by the Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative (SFARI) in 2015. The grants awarded under that RFA, described here, enabled progress on several assessment approaches, but none are fully validated or ready for broad deployment at this time.

Read More
Important Dates
  • RFA Announced
  • Webex Informational Sessions
    January 25 and
  • Notice of Intent Due
  • Full Applications Due
  • Notice of Award
  • Funding Begins
Contact Info

The deadline for application submission is Friday, March 1, 2019, at 5 p.m. EST.

proposalCENTRAL Login Information
Applications must be submitted via proposalCENTRAL (pC). To start an application in pC, users must first log in to their pC account.

If You Need to Create a New Account in pC
To create a new account, go to proposalCENTRAL and click “Create one now” under “Need an account?” Fill in the required fields, check the boxes to agree to pC’s terms of service and acceptable use policy, and click “Save.”

If You Have an Existing Account in pC
For all users with a pC account, log in under “Application Login” at proposalCENTRAL and select “Create New Proposal” or click on the “Grant Opportunities” tab. Scroll down to “Simons Foundation” and click “Apply Now” for the “Novel Outcome Measures in ASD Request for Applications” program to start the proposal and access the templates. After all sections are completed, you will be able to click on the “Submit” button to send.

To submit an application, you must complete the following proposalCENTRAL sections:

  1. Title Page: Enter the proposal title in this section.
  2. Download Templates and Instructions: All templates necessary to complete your proposal are available for download in this module (or the Proposal Attachments module, where attachments are submitted as PDF-only files; see the Proposal Attachments section below for more details).
  3. Enable Other Users to Access This Proposal: This section allows you to give other users access to your grant application. You have the option of giving them one of three levels of permission: View, Edit or Administrator.
  4. Applicant/PI: The principal investigator (PI) should be listed here. For grants with multiple PIs, the contact PI should be listed here.
  5. Organization/Institution: Contact information for the signing official and the financial/fiscal officer from your institution is required; select the correct person or enter new names in this
  6. Key Personnel: Indicate key personnel, including but not limited to: PIs, co-investigators, consultants and postdoctoral research associates. In rare circumstances, the applicant organization may designate multiple PIs who share the authority and responsibility for leading the project, intellectually and logistically. For more information on the responsibilities of PIs, please refer to the Simons Foundation policies.
  7. Abstract: Enter your abstract as text in this section.
  8. Budget Period Detail: Enter your budget period detail in this section.
    1. Award start date: Proposals selected for funding will be announced by June 4, 2019, and funding will begin on July 1, 2019.
    2. Indirect costs (IDC): IDCs are limited to 20 percent of direct costs. The following items may not be claimed as IDCs: equipment, tuition, and any subcontracts with budgets including IDCs. IDCs paid to a subcontractor may not exceed 20 percent of the direct costs paid to the subcontractor. While IDCs on most equipment are not allowable, IDCs on small equipment (costing up to $10,000) are permissible.
    3. Equipment: The Simons Foundation (SF) will own equipment purchased with SF grant funds with a unit cost of $50,000 or more. At the end of the grant funding period or in the case of grant termination for any reason, SF reserves the right to retain ownership or cede ownership to the PI’s institution. Equipment with a unit cost of less than $50,000 shall be the property of the institution.
    4. Budget: The maximum budget is $300,000 per year, including indirect costs, for two or three years. Exceptions with strong justification will be considered but are not encouraged.
    5. Multiple PIs:
      1. Please note that the applicant PI will be the designated contact PI for the project. The contact PI will be responsible for directing the project and will coordinate all administrative deliverables.
      2. Applications with multiple PIs from different institutions who would like to be paid separately must upload in the Proposal Attachments section:
        1. Signed signature page for each PI (available for download in the Proposal Attachments and Download Templates and Instructions sections).
        2. Budget template for each non-applicant PI (available for download in the Proposal Attachments and Download Templates and Instructions sections).
        3. The direct and indirect costs for all non-applicant PIs. Direct costs must be included in section 8 (Budget Period Detail) in the Consortium & Contractual Direct section, and indirect costs should be included in the Indirect Costs section. Please add a separate line for direct costs and one for indirect costs for each non-applicant PI.
      3. Applications with multiple PIs from different institutions who will be paid directly by the contact PI’s institution are considered subcontracts. Please refer to the subcontract instructions in section 8f below.
      4. Applications with multiple PIs from the same institution do not need to submit additional materials. Additional non-applicant PIs should be listed as key personnel in section 6 (Key Personnel) and section 8 (Budget Period Detail), and only one signature page is needed.
    6. Subcontracts:
      1. Applications with subcontracts (including PIs who will be paid directly by the contact PI’s institution) must submit:
        1. Subcontract detailed budget (available for download in the Proposal Attachments and Download Templates and Instructions sections) for each subcontract.
        2. Subcontract direct and indirect costs. Subcontract direct costs must be included in the Consortium & Contractual Direct section, and subcontract indirect costs should be included in the Indirect Costs section. Please add a separate line for direct costs and one for indirect costs for each subcontract.
  9. Budget Summary: The budget summary will populate from the saved detailed budget.
  10. Organization Assurances: Indicate use of human participants or vertebrate animals in this section and status of approval from the institutional review board or Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee. Grants cannot activate without current human participant and/or animal research ethical approval.
  11. Proposal Attachments: The following documents are to be uploaded in this section, where they are also available for download:
    1. Proposal narrative: The proposal narrative should not exceed four pages (excluding references, figures and figure legends). Proposals should include specific aims, background relevant to the application, significance of the proposed studies, preliminary results, experimental design, pitfalls and alternative strategies, and a timeline with milestones. SFARI’s preference is for figures to follow the narrative rather than be embedded in the text.
    2. Biographical sketch of key personnel.
    3. Budget justification.
    4. Budget templates:
      1. Multiple PIs: Applications with multiple PIs from different institutions who would like to be paid separately must submit a signed budget template for each PI institution.
      2. Subcontract: Applications with subcontracts must submit a budget template.
    5. Research environment and resources.
    6. Renewable reagents and data-sharing plan.
    7. Current and pending support: Please upload current and pending support both for PIs and for key personnel.
    8. Signed signature page: Applications with multiple PIs from different institutions who would like to be paid separately must submit a signed signature page from each PI institution.
  12. PI data sheet: Your professional profile will populate this section of the application. If revisions are required, please select “Edit Professional Profile” and go to section 4 (Personal Data for Applications).
  13. Validate: You must click the “Validate” button to check for any missing required information or files. All missing required information will be listed on the screen. Please supply any missing information before proceeding to the next step.
  14. Signature page(s): The signed signature page is available for download in this section and must be signed by the signing official, then re-uploaded in the Proposal Attachments section. Applications with multiple PIs from different institutions who would like to be paid separately must submit a signed signature page for each PI institution.
  15. Submit: You will be unable to submit if you have not provided all the required information. Any missing information will be listed on the screen. If your submission is successful, you will receive a confirmation message on the screen and a confirmation email.

Please note that narratives exceeding the four-page limit (not including references, figures and figure legends) will not be reviewed.
No extensions will be given.

Read More
Important Dates
  • RFA Announced
  • Webex Informational Sessions
    January 25 and
  • Notice of Intent Due
  • Full Applications Due
  • Notice of Award
  • Funding Begins
Contact Info

Evaluating two newly developed treatment outcome measures (BOSCC and ELSA) in the context of an ASD behavioral intervention trial

  • Awarded: 2019
  • Award Type: Targeted: Novel Outcome Measures for ASD Clinical Trials
  • Award #: 655054

Related Content

Subscribe to our newsletter and receive SFARI funding announcements and news