Autism and Food Selectivity

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 64-74
Author(s):  
Raksha Sharma ◽  
Sukriti Ghimire ◽  
Kshitiz Upadhyay Dhungel
Keyword(s):  
Early Stage ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Food Selectivity ◽  
Repetitive Behaviors ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Feeding Problems ◽  
Factors Affecting ◽  
Sensory Modulation Disorder ◽  
Spectrum Disorders ◽  
Inadequate Nutrition

Autism is a heterogeneous, neuro-developmental syndrome where patient shows various disorders, collectively known as autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). It mostly begins in infancy or during the first three years of life and has been found more in boys than in girls. The symptoms of ASD often include language regression, motor regression, and loss of bowel and bladder use. ASD also affects the feeding habit of children, with rates up to 74% as compared to normally developing children. Among different problems related to feeding, food selectivity is one of the key problems as it is directly linked with inadequate nutrition. Different factors affecting food selectivity are restrictive and repetitive behaviors, sensory modulation disorder, sensory over responsively, frequent illness /physical discomfort, and family preferences of food. Food selectivity among the children with ASD has been reported to be as high as 46- 89% as compared to typically developing children. Enough research on linkage of food selectivity with age and other factors is yet to be confirmed. Knowledge and awareness in parents regarding autism and food selectivity may help immensely to diagnose and address feeding problems in ASD at early stage.  

scholarly journals Food Selectivity in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders and Typically Developing Children

2010 ◽  
Vol 157 (2) ◽  
pp. 259-264 ◽  
Author(s):  
Linda G. Bandini ◽  
Sarah E. Anderson ◽  
Carol Curtin ◽  
Sharon Cermak ◽  
E. Whitney Evans ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Autism Spectrum Disorders ◽  
Children With Autism ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Food Selectivity ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Typically Developing Children ◽  
Spectrum Disorders

scholarly journals Gastrointestinal Symptoms and Feeding Problems and Their Associations with Dietary Interventions, Food Supplement Use, and Behavioral Characteristics in a Sample of Children and Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorders

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (17) ◽  
pp. 6372
Author(s):  
Katarina Babinska ◽  
Hana Celusakova ◽  
Ivan Belica ◽  
Zofia Szapuova ◽  
Iveta Waczulikova ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Food Supplement ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Food Selectivity ◽  
Behavioral Characteristics ◽  
Feeding Problems ◽  
Dietary Interventions ◽  
Supplement Use ◽  
Gi Symptoms ◽  
Mealtime Problems ◽  
Spectrum Disorders

Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are characterized by impairments in social interaction, communication, and restricted, stereotyped behavior. Gastrointestinal (GI), nutritional, and feeding problems are often reported in ASD. We investigated the prevalence of GI symptoms, food selectivity, and mealtime difficulties, and their associations with dietary interventions, food supplement use, and behavioral characteristics in a sample involving 247 participants with ASD and 267 controls aged 2–18 years. Data were collected by a questionnaire. GI symptoms were observed in 88.9% of children and adolescents with ASD, more often in girls than in boys. High rates of food selectivity (69.1%) and mealtime problems (64.3%) were found. Food supplements were used by 66.7% of individuals, mainly vitamins/minerals, probiotics, and omega-3 fatty acids. In the ASD sample, 21.2% of subjects followed a diet, mostly based on gluten and milk restriction, including individuals exhibiting food selectivity. Frequency of GI symptoms, food selectivity, and mealtime problems correlated weakly, but significantly with behavioral characteristics in the ASD group, but not with food supplement use. The study demonstrated that higher frequency of GI symptoms, food selectivity, and mealtime problems are a common problem in pre-schoolers, schoolchildren, and adolescents with ASD, and together with dietary modification, they are significantly associated with ASD.

Longitudinal follow-up of factors associated with food selectivity in children with autism spectrum disorders

Autism ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 18 (8) ◽  
pp. 924-932 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michelle A Suarez ◽  
Nickola W Nelson ◽  
Amy B Curtis
Keyword(s):  
Autism Spectrum Disorders ◽  
Repetitive Behavior ◽  
Children With Autism ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Food Selectivity ◽  
Repetitive Behaviors ◽  
Restricted And Repetitive Behaviors ◽  
Spectrum Disorders ◽  
The Stability ◽  
Parent Response

The objective of this study was to examine food selectivity in children with autism spectrum disorders longitudinally. Additionally explored were the stability of the relationship between food selectivity and sensory over-responsivity from time 1 to time 2 and the association between food selectivity and restricted and repetitive behavior at time 2. A total of 52 parents of children with autism were surveyed approximately 20 months after completing an initial questionnaire. First and second surveys each contained identical parent-response item to categorize food selectivity level and a scale to measure sensory over-responsivity. A new scale to measure restricted and repetitive behaviors was added at time 2. Results comparing time 1 to time 2 indicated no change in food selectivity level and a stable, significant relationship between food selectivity and sensory over-responsivity. The measure of restrictive and repetitive behavior (time 2) was found to significantly predict membership in the severe food selectivity group. However, when sensory over-responsivity and both restricted and repetitive behaviors were included in the regression model, only sensory over-responsivity significantly predicted severe food selectivity. These results support conclusions about the chronicity of food selectivity in young children with autism and the consistent relationship between food selectivity and sensory over-responsivity.

Disfluency Characteristics Observed in Young Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders: A Preliminary Report

2010 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 42-50 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura W. Plexico ◽  
Julie E. Cleary ◽  
Ashlynn McAlpine ◽  
Allison M. Plumb
Keyword(s):  
Autism Spectrum Disorders ◽  
Young Children ◽  
Children With Autism ◽  
Descriptive Study ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Children With Asd ◽  
Young Children With Autism ◽  
Spectrum Disorders ◽  
Developmental Stuttering

This descriptive study evaluates the speech disfluencies of 8 verbal children between 3 and 5 years of age with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Speech samples were collected for each child during standardized interactions. Percentage and types of disfluencies observed during speech samples are discussed. Although they did not have a clinical diagnosis of stuttering, all of the young children with ASD in this study produced disfluencies. In addition to stuttering-like disfluencies and other typical disfluencies, the children with ASD also produced atypical disfluencies, which usually are not observed in children with typically developing speech or developmental stuttering. (Yairi & Ambrose, 2005).

AUTISM IN THE DISCOURSE OF THE RUSSIAN MASS MEDIA: CONSTRUCTING OF THE IMAGE OF A HUMAN WITH ASD

2020 ◽  
pp. 37-43
Author(s):  
Saveleva Zh.V.
Keyword(s):  
Mass Media ◽  
Early Stage ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Media Discourse ◽  
Adults With Autism ◽  
Video Clips ◽  
The Media ◽  
Inner World ◽  
Spectrum Disorders ◽  
The Mass Media

The prevalence of autism is growing, the problems of stigmatization and discrimination of people with autism spectrum disorders in society are exacerbating. The mass media play an important role in enlightening and reducing stigmatizing effects, in connection with which the goal was formulated to study the construction of images of a person with ASD in the mass media by the method of qualitative and discourse analysis of video clips from the federal channel. According to the results of the study, it can be argued that the range of characteristics used to describe people with autism in media discourse is diverse, but in retrospect, dominant interpretation models can be identified. At an early stage, the prevailing image of a person with ASD was deprived of the quality’s characteristic of normotypical people who do not want to leave their world. People diagnosed with autism were referred to as the intolerant category of "autistic". Since 2013, there has been a discursive turn, within which the category “autist” is replaced by tolerant speech patterns, adults with autism get into the lens of the media, the topic of uncommunicability as a property of a person with autism is replaced by the intention of the lack of opportunities to communicate, one of the reasons for which is social exclusion. In television stories of recent years, the mass media are actively constructing the image of a person with autism spectrum disorder through his inner world, through the advantages that a person with ASD can have due to his characteristics. However, it cannot be said that there has been a complete change of the image: the old cliches, as a rule, manifest themselves at a more latent level of grammatical constructions and semiotic meanings.

Disorder-specific alterations of tactile sensitivity in neurodevelopmental disorders

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason He ◽  
Ericka Wodka ◽  
Mark Tommerdahl ◽  
Richard Edden ◽  
Mark Mikkelsen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Clinical Symptoms ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Hyperactivity Disorder ◽  
The Core ◽  
Children With Asd ◽  
Tactile Detection ◽  
Spectrum Disorders ◽  
Sensory Processes ◽  
Core Symptoms

Alterations of tactile processing have long been identified in autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). However, the extent to which these alterations are disorder-specific, rather than disorder-general, and how they relate to the core symptoms of each disorder, remains unclear. We measured and compared tactile detection, discrimination and order judgment thresholds between a large sample of children with ASD, ADHD, ASD + ADHD combined and typically developing controls. The pattern of results suggested that while difficulties with tactile detection and order judgement were more common in children with ADHD, difficulties with tactile discrimination were more common in children with ASD. Strikingly, subsequent correlation analyses found that the disorder-specific alterations suggested by the group comparisons were also exclusively related to the core symptoms of each respective disorder. These results suggest that disorder-specific alterations of lower-level sensory processes exist and are specifically related to higher-level clinical symptoms of each disorder.

scholarly journals Investigating Gaze Behaviour of Children Diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorders in a Classroom Setting

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aideen McParland ◽  
Stephen Gallagher ◽  
Mickey Keenan
Keyword(s):  
Eye Tracking ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Classroom Setting ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Training Tool ◽  
Gaze Behaviour ◽  
Promising Application ◽  
Spectrum Disorders ◽  
Face Stimuli ◽  
Operant Training

AbstractA defining feature of ASD is atypical gaze behaviour, however, eye-tracking studies in ‘real-world’ settings are limited, and the possibility of improving gaze behaviour for ASD children is largely unexplored. This study investigated gaze behaviour of ASD and typically developing (TD) children in their classroom setting. Eye-tracking technology was used to develop and pilot an operant training tool to positively reinforce typical gaze behaviour towards faces. Visual and statistical analyses of eye-tracking data revealed different gaze behaviour patterns during live interactions for ASD and TD children depending on the interaction type. All children responded to operant training with longer looking times observed on face stimuli post training. The promising application of operant gaze training in ecologically valid settings is discussed.

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