Mealtime Behaviors Associated with Consumption of Unfamiliar Foods by Young Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder
Issue Date
2015-05-31Author
Stough, Cathleen
Publisher
University of Kansas
Format
52 pages
Type
Dissertation
Degree Level
Ph.D.
Discipline
Clinical Child Psychology
Rights
Copyright held by the author.
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Background: Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) show greater food refusal than their typically developing peers. The current study examined parent and child mealtime behaviors associated with consumption of unfamiliar foods by children with ASD. Methods: Families of 38 children aged 2 through 8 years old and diagnosed with ASD videotaped a typical home mealtime during which parents presented the child with an unfamiliar food and mealtime behaviors were subsequently coded through an observational coding system. Results: Only sips of drink at the meal related to whether children took a bite of the unfamiliar food (z = - 2.42, p = .02). However, parent direct commands (z = 2.01, p = .04) and parents feeding the child (z = 6.69, p Conclusions: Frequency of most mealtime behaviors across the course of the meal did not differentiate between children who took a bite of the unfamiliar food and those who did not. Clinical interventions for food selectivity in children with ASD should provide parents education on effective mealtime parenting strategies (e.g., commands and feeds) and decreasing inappropriate child mealtime behaviors (e.g., not playing at the table, not being away from the meal).
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- Psychology Dissertations and Theses [459]
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