Food Selectivity in Children with Autism: Guidelines for Assessment and Clinical Interventions

Marco Esposito (), Paolo Mirizzi, Roberta Fadda, Chiara Pirollo, Orlando Ricciardi, Monica Mazza and Marco Valenti
Additional contact information
Marco Esposito: Autism Research and Treatment Centre Una Breccia Nel Muro, 00168 Rome, Italy
Paolo Mirizzi: Department of Education, Psychology, Communication, University of Bari, 70121 Bari, Italy
Roberta Fadda: Department of Pedagogy, Psychology, Philosophy, University of Cagliari, 09100 Cagliari, Italy
Chiara Pirollo: Autism Research and Treatment Centre Una Breccia Nel Muro, 00168 Rome, Italy
Orlando Ricciardi: Autism Research and Treatment Centre Una Breccia Nel Muro, 00168 Rome, Italy
Monica Mazza: Department of Applied Clinical Sciences and Biotechnology, University of L’Aquila, 67100 L’Aquila, Italy
Marco Valenti: Department of Applied Clinical Sciences and Biotechnology, University of L’Aquila, 67100 L’Aquila, Italy

IJERPH, 2023, vol. 20, issue 6, 1-33

Abstract: Autisms Spectrum Disorders (ASD) are characterized by core symptoms (social communication and restricted and repetitive behaviors) and related comorbidities, including sensory anomalies, feeding issues, and challenging behaviors. Children with ASD experience significantly more feeding problems than their peers. In fact, parents and clinicians have to manage daily the burden of various dysfunctional behaviors of children at mealtimes (food refusal, limited variety of food, single food intake, or liquid diet). These dysfunctional behaviors at mealtime depend on different factors that are either medical/sensorial or behavioral. Consequently, a correct assessment is necessary in order to program an effective clinical intervention. The aim of this study is to provide clinicians with a guideline regarding food selectivity concerning possible explanations of the phenomenon, along with a direct/indirect assessment gathering detailed and useful information about target feeding behaviors. Finally, a description of evidence-based sensorial and behavioral strategies useful also for parent-mediated intervention is reported addressing food selectivity in children with ASD.

Keywords: food selectivity; autism spectrum disorder; applied behavior analysis; sensory processing; parent training (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/20/6/5092/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/20/6/5092/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:20:y:2023:i:6:p:5092-:d:1096530

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().