Intact Hedonic Responses to Sweet Tastes in Autism Spectrum Disorder.
Sweet taste liking stays normal in adults with autism, so sugary reinforcers remain fair game.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Ellingsen et al. (2014) asked adults with autism and neurotypical adults to sip sweet water. They rated how much they liked each sip. The team also checked how well each person could taste the sugar.
The study used a simple lab test. No therapy was given. The goal was to see if sweet taste pleasure breaks in autism.
What they found
Both groups liked sweet water the same. Adults with autism enjoyed sugar just as much as controls. They also tasted it just as well.
A small twist: within the autism group, people with more severe traits were a bit less sensitive to sugar. Yet they still liked it the same.
How this fits with other research
Tavassoli et al. (2012) seems to disagree. That study found adults with autism were worse at naming sweet, sour, and bitter tastes. Ellingsen et al. (2014) found no liking gap. The gap is about naming, not enjoyment. You can mis-label a taste yet still like it.
Kumazaki et al. (2019) showed kids with autism adapt less to smells. Ellingsen et al. (2014) shows adults adapt fine to sweet. Age and sense differ, so both can be true.
Greenlee et al. (2024) also report a null: adults with autism feel vibrotactile timing like controls. Together these papers say basic taste, touch, and adult smell work in typical ranges.
Why it matters
Keep using candy, juice, or fruit as reinforcers for adults with autism. Their pleasure system for sugar is intact. Do not drop edibles based on guess-work about broken taste. If a client refuses sweet items, look at other reasons like texture or rule-governed behavior, not a faulty sweet tooth.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
The Sweet Taste Test (STT) is a standardized measure designed to index the ability to detect differences in sweet tastes (sweet taste sensitivity) and hedonic responses to sweet tastes (sweet taste liking). Profiles of response on the STT suggest enhanced hedonic responses to sweet tastes in psychiatric disorders characterized by dysfunctional reward processing systems, including binge-eating disorders and substance use disorders, and a putative mechanism governing STT responses is the brain opioid system. The present study examined STT responses in 20 adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and 38 healthy control adults. There were no differences in sweet taste sensitivity or hedonic response to sweet tastes between the ASD and control groups. Within the ASD sample, ASD symptom severity was associated with sweet taste sensitivity, but not hedonic response to sweet taste. Results may ultimately shed light on brain opioid system functioning in ASD.
Research in autism spectrum disorders, 2014 · doi:10.1016/j.rasd.2013.12.003