Associations between autism symptom severity and mealtime behaviors in young children presented with an unfamiliar food.
Kids with more severe autism take fewer bites of unfamiliar foods and act out more, even when parents prompt hard.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Patton et al. (2020) watched kids with autism eat at home. They gave each child a new food the child had never seen.
Staff coded how many bites the child took, how often the child fussed or left the table, and how many times mom or dad had to prompt.
The team then asked: do kids with higher autism severity resist the food more?
What they found
Children who scored higher on autism symptoms took fewer bites of the new food.
They also showed more yelling, getting up, or throwing items. Parents of these kids gave almost twice as many verbal cues like “take a bite.”
How this fits with other research
Geneviève et al. (2019) extends this finding. They showed that five weeks of smelling a new food odor made 68 % of autistic kids later pick that food. Together the papers say: unfamiliar food is first rejected, but gentle exposure can flip the choice.
Page et al. (2022) pull many studies into one map. Their review agrees that sensory issues and rigidity drive food refusal in autism. The 2020 home data now give a live picture of those links.
Geneviève et al. (2019) seems to contradict Patton et al. (2020) because one shows rejection and the other shows acceptance. The gap is method: R et al. watched one first meeting, while Geneviève gave many sniff sessions before the test.
Why it matters
If you work with autistic children, expect new foods to meet instant push-back, especially for kids with high symptom scores. Start with tiny, no-pressure exposures like letting the child smell or touch the food. Track bites and prompts for one week; you should see both numbers move as the food becomes familiar.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
BACKGROUND: Feeding problems are common in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), and there are associations between parent reports of child ASD symptom severity and feeding problems. The current study further explores this association between ASD severity and family mealtime behaviors using directly observed naturalistic mealtime interactions. METHODS AND PROCEDURES: Seventy-three children (Mage = 5.42 years) were presented an unfamiliar food during a videotaped but otherwise typical home meal. Mealtime behavior was assessed through coding of the videotaped meal using the Dyadic Interaction Nomenclature for Eating (DINE) and parent report (Brief ASD Mealtime Behavior Inventory; BAMBI). ASD severity was assessed with the clinician-completed Childhood Autism Rating Scale-Second Edition (CARS-2). OUTCOMES AND RESULTS: Greater ASD severity was associated with fewer bites of the unfamiliar food, greater disruptive behavior during meals, and greater parental commands to take bites during meals. We found negative associations between limited food variety and food refusal (BAMBI subscales) and child bites of the unfamiliar food, with higher levels of limited food variety and food refusal associated with fewer bites of the unfamiliar food. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS: Children with more severe ASD may eat less and be more disruptive during meals, despite parent redirection. We also found associations between the BAMBI and DINE which suggest the BAMBI may be a sensitive measure of mealtime behaviors such as food flexibility and food refusal.
Research in developmental disabilities, 2020 · doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2020.103676