Improvements in Children's Feeding Behavior after Intensive Interdisciplinary Behavioral Treatment: Comparisons by Developmental and Medical Status.
Intensive day-treatment feeding intervention works across autism, other special needs, and medical comorbidities—expect broad gains in mealtime behavior and food acceptance.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Delgado-Lobete et al. (2020) tested an intensive day-treatment feeding program. The team mixed behavior analysts, speech and occupational therapists. They worked with kids who had autism, other delays, or medical issues.
Before and after the program they scored 11 feeding skills. No control group was used.
What they found
Ten of the eleven feeding measures got better. Kids ate more types of food, had fewer tantrums at the table, and needed less help to chew or swallow.
The gains showed up for children with and without autism.
How this fits with other research
Smith et al. (2022) saw the same kind of progress, but only in four children with CHARGE syndrome. Laura’s study widens the lens and says the same intensive plan helps a mixed group.
Rodgers et al. (2021) found small IQ and adaptive gains after two years of broad early ABA. Laura’s paper adds feeding as another domain that moves under intense behavioral treatment.
Reichow et al. (2009) and Reichow (2012) both say EIBI works on average for preschoolers with autism. Laura’s data say you can target just feeding and still see strong change, even if the child has extra medical issues.
Why it matters
If a child’s feeding is stuck, you no longer need to wait for every other skill to improve first. Refer to—or create—an intensive interdisciplinary team. Use the same behavioral tactics you already know: shaping, escape extinction, and differential reinforcement. Expect broad gains in food acceptance, mealtime behavior, and oral intake whether the child has autism, medical complexity, or both.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
This study examined changes in child mealtime behavior, diet variety, and family mealtime environment after intensive interdisciplinary behavioral treatment (IIBT) for 52 children referred to a day treatment feeding program. Children fell into three developmental status groups including autism spectrum disorder (n = 16), other special needs (n = 19), and no special needs (n = 17), with some having no known medical problems (n = 22) and some having gastrointestinal, cardiopulmonary, and/or endocrine-metabolic problems (n = 28). At pre-intervention and post-intervention, caregivers completed the About Your Child's Eating scale, the Brief Assessment of Mealtime Behavior in Children, and a food preference inventory of 70 common foods (20 fruits, 23 vegetables, 12 proteins, 8 grains, 7 dairy). Mixed-factor 2 × 3 ANOVAs compared each of the 11 feeding outcomes across the two study phases (pre-, post-intervention) for the three developmental status groups. All feeding outcomes except fruit acceptance showed significant improvements from pre- to post-intervention, with no main effects for developmental status, and no interaction effects. Additionally, mixed-factor 2 × 2 ANOVAs compared each of the 11 feeding outcomes across the two study phases (pre-, post-intervention) for children with and without medical problems. All feeding outcomes except fruit acceptance showed significant improvements from pre- to post-intervention, with no main effects for medical status, and no interaction effects. Present results suggest that IIBT is effective for improving a number of children's feeding problems, regardless of their developmental or medical status.
Behavior modification, 2020 · doi:10.1177/0145445519865170