Treating food selectivity as resistance to change in children with autism spectrum disorder

Crowley et al. (2020) worked with seven preschoolers who had autism and very short menus. The team treated picky eating as "resistance to change." They wanted to see if kids would eat new foods when the payoff for trying was bigger than the payoff for refusing.

The children first got two plates: one with a favorite food and one with a new food. In the asymmetry phase, eating the new food earned the child the favorite food. Eating the favorite food earned nothing. The team also tested single-choice trials: only the new food was on the table. The design flipped back and forth to be sure the arrangement, not luck, caused any change.

Every child ate more of the new foods when the contingencies were lopsided or when only the new food was offered. When the rules flipped back, old patterns returned. When the rules flipped again, gains came back. Kids even tried foods that had never been trained.

No one had to hide or remove the child’s favorite foods. The team simply made eating new foods the easier way to win.

Vanderzell et al. (2025) later repeated the idea with autistic teens and adults in group homes. They added "synthesized reinforcement" for small steps and still saw 60–100% acceptance. This shows the matching-law trick works past preschool.

Pubylski-Yanofchick et al. (2022) tested the same asymmetry logic with one adult. Positive reinforcement beat negative reinforcement, matching Crowley’s kid-friendly results. The pattern holds across ages.

Silbaugh et al. (2018) took the opposite road: when praise and bites alone failed, they added gentle physical guidance and also won big gains. The two studies seem to clash—choice versus guidance—but they answer different questions. Crowley asks, "Can we make new food the easier choice?" Silbaugh asks, "What if the child still won’t bite?" Use Crowley first; save guidance for when reinforcement alone stalls.

You can widen a child’s diet without battles or hiding veggies. Put the new food and the favorite food on the table. Let the child earn the favorite by tasting the new one. If that is too hard, start with single-choice trials: only the new food sits there. Both tactics respect the child’s control while making acceptance pay off better than refusal. Try it during your next lunch session and track bites across days.