Recruitment and participant flow
autism
RECRUITMENT
From March 2018 to August 2020, recruitment, treatment, and data collection were conducted in Chiba and Fukushima, Japan. Adolescent outpatients (10–17 years) had been diagnosed with autism using gold-standard instruments such as the ADOS-2 and ADI-R. Their parents/guardians were informed about the intervention in the waiting rooms at Chiba University Hospital and a local psychiatry clinic. For those who showed interest, more information was provided by the recruitment staff (FO and NT), and parents/guardians of prospective research participants contacted the researchers either by phone or email address.The CONSORT flow of participants throughout the trial is shown in Fig. 
The flow of participants through the trial