Response shaping to improve food acceptance for children with autism: Effects of small and large food sets

Abstract

Background: Food selectivity, characterized by food refusal, limited food repertoire, or preference for certain types of foods, is common among children with ASD.

Method: In this study, researchers examined the effects of a response shaping procedure using a large rotating food set and a small constant food set on food acceptance for two boys with ASD. The small set consisted of three foods that were presented during every session; the large set consisted of 15 foods, of which three were presented during each session, in randomly ordered sets. Researchers measured the percentage of correct behaviors and the cumulative number of foods with which participants interacted. Two concurrently operating multiple baseline across behaviors designs were used to assess whether the shaping procedure resulted in increased correct responding compared to baseline conditions, and whether the intervention was differentially effective with large versus small food sets.

Results: The procedures were similar in efficiency for one participant, although he ate many more foods in the large set condition. For the other participant, shaping was successful at increasing some acceptance behaviors (e.g., putting food in his mouth) but only the small set resulted in eating a new food.

Conclusions: Practitioners should consider use of less restrictive or intrusive interventions to promote food acceptance and the use of larger sets of foods, modified to include fewer foods in the case of poor response to intervention.

Keywords: ASD; Escape extinction; Food acceptance; Food selectivity; Shaping; Single case design.