Parental assessment and treatment of food selectivity in natural settings.

Parents ran a short functional analysis at home. They then used the results to build a treatment plan.

The plan mixed differential reinforcement, escape extinction, and demand fading. Sessions happened at the dinner table and later in a restaurant.

Food acceptance went up both at home and in the community setting. The child with autism ate new foods with his parents, not just with therapists.

Sisson et al. (1993) showed parents can expand food repertoires with reinforcement and tiny bites. Najdowski et al. (2003) adds a brief FA so parents know why the child refuses before they start.

Penrod et al. (2012) later showed you can get gains without escape extinction if you first use high-probability requests. The target paper still used extinction, but both studies fade demands gradually.

O'Connor et al. (2020) looks like a contradiction. Their video modeling plus reinforcement gave mixed and small effects. The difference: they tested mixed-diagnosis kids and no FA. Najdowski et al. (2003) targeted one autistic child after identifying an escape function, so the treatment matched the reason for refusal.

You can teach parents to do a 10-minute FA on a weekend. Once you know the function, send home a simple DRA plan with escape extinction and fading. Check generalization by having dinner at a local restaurant. You save clinic hours and the family gains a skill they can use anywhere.