Relative preferences for edible and leisure stimuli in children with autism
Kids with autism now choose leisure items more than past data showed, so always test both edibles and toys in paired-stimulus assessments.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Conine and team asked 26 kids with autism to pick between two items at a time. Half the items were edible, like chips or candy. The other half were leisure items, like iPads or toys.
They used a paired-stimulus preference assessment. Kids saw two items and touched the one they wanted. The team recorded every choice to build a rank list for each child.
What they found
Edible items still topped most lists, but leisure items were chosen far more than older studies reported. Some kids picked the iPad over cookies every single time.
The gap between edible and leisure preferences was smaller than expected. Individual differences were large; no single item worked for every child.
How this fits with other research
Villafaña et al. (2023) conceptually replicated the edible side of the story. They showed that brief taste samples after a pictorial choice matched full edible assessments for food-selective kids. Together, the two papers confirm that edible items stay powerful, yet pictorial or brief access can still predict choices.
Leezenbaum et al. (2019) seems to contradict our finding that leisure items are gaining ground. Their preschoolers with ASD gave up quickly when asked to wait for a better reward. The difference is focus: Conine measured immediate choice, while B et al. measured how long kids could delay. Kids may still prefer edibles when they have to wait, but pick leisure when the item is instant.
Konke et al. (2026) adds a longer-term view. They showed that toddlers who can wait for preferred items keep higher adaptive skills, even with autistic symptoms. Conine’s data remind us that those ‘preferred items’ now include more leisure stimuli, so teaching wait skills around tablets or toys may be just as vital as teaching around snacks.
Why it matters
Update your preference assessments today. Keep both edible and leisure options in the array, and run fresh pairings each month. If a child keeps picking the tablet over crackers, use tablet time as the reinforcer and skip the food. Also, pair leisure items with brief delays to build tolerance, following the path Andersson suggests. One quick change: place the iPad on the left side of the next paired-stimulus trial and record the choice—you might find your most powerful reinforcer is already in the play corner.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Prior researchers have reported a tendency for individuals with developmental disabilities to select edible items more often than leisure items when those items are presented together in stimulus preference assessments. However, children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), with whom many behavior analysts currently practice, are underrepresented in this body of literature. We conducted a replication of prior research with 26 children with ASD. Results indicated that edible items were more likely than leisure items to rank highly in our preference assessments, in concurrence with prior research. However, leisure items were also selected more often overall than in prior research, and significant individual variation was observed. These results suggest that preference assessments containing both edible and leisure stimuli can yield useful information for behavior analysts providing services to children with ASD, and the degree of preference for edible items noted in prior work may not be reflected in this contemporary population.
Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 2019 · doi:10.1002/jaba.525