Food preferences before and during treatment for a pediatric feeding disorder

Three kids with feeding disorders took paired-stimulus food tests every week. They picked between two foods at a time to show which they liked best.

The team ran the same test before and during feeding treatment. Some foods were new to therapy, others were already on the plate.

Rankings stayed the same for every child. Therapy exposure did not budge their likes or dislikes.

Even after eating the foods many times, the kids still chose the same winners and losers.

Butler et al. (2021) watched edible likes for a full year. They also saw no change, stretching the "no re-test" rule from weeks to months.

Wilson et al. (2024) swapped food for social videos and still found steady ranks. The pattern holds across very different stimuli.

Norris et al. (2024) looks like a clash. They saw big shifts when kids picked functional reinforcers for problem behavior. The gap is simple: food likes are wired early, but reinforcer value for misbehavior can swing once contingencies change.

You can skip mid-treatment food re-tests, saving precious session minutes. Run one solid paired-stimulus assessment at intake and trust it for months. Spend the freed time on bite presentations or parent coaching instead of re-sorting crackers and apples.