Navigating Feeding Issues for Children on the Autism Spectrum is the kind of topic that looks straightforward until it collides with the speed, ambiguity, and competing demands of home routines, treatment sessions, interdisciplinary consultation, and health-related skill support. In Navigating Feeding Issues for Children on the Autism Spectrum, for this course, the practical stakes show up in safe, humane intervention that respects health variables and daily-life feasibility, not in abstract discussion alone.
Provider: BehaviorLive — via Profound Autism Summit
Take This Course →Including ethics, supervision, and topics like this one. New live CEU every Wednesday.
Join Free →Feeding problems are highly prevalent in children on the autism spectrum, and food selectivity is the most common concern for these children. This often includes preference for starches, snacks, fats, and processed foods and the rejection of vegetables and fruits. Although many autistic children with feeding problems do not have issues maintaining their weight, if left untreated, they are at risk for nutritional deficiencies and their diets could lead to poor health problems (e.g., obesity, diabetes). This often results in high caregiver stress. This presentation will provide an overview (a) of the clinical presentation of feeding difficulties in autistic children and the potential causes of food selectivity and (b) general treatment approaches to address food selectivity.
| Certification Body | Credits | Type |
|---|---|---|
| BACB® | 1 | General |
| COA | 1 | — |
| NASW | 1 | — |
| PSY | 1 | — |
Valerie M. Volkert, Associate Professor (Pediatrics), is a psychologist program manager in the Children’s Multidisciplinary Feeding Program at the Marcus Autism Center. She sees patients in the intensive day treatment and outpatient clinics in the feeding program, supervises interns and residents, and pursues lines of clinical research. She has authored four book chapters and published 51 peer-reviewed research studies. Dr. Volkert has served on the board of editors for several journals and as associate editor for the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis.
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All behavior-analytic intervention is individualized. The information on this page is for educational purposes and does not constitute clinical advice. Treatment decisions should be informed by the best available published research, individualized assessment, and obtained with the informed consent of the client or their legal guardian. Behavior analysts are responsible for practicing within the boundaries of their competence and adhering to the BACB Ethics Code for Behavior Analysts.