My latest research has been published with @SpringerNature in the Journal of Developmental and Physical Disabilities.
This article provides a clinical example of how to systematically assess food preferences, use the results before and during treatment to carefully plan out the food difficulty level and gradual progression to increase food variety over time, and match this difficulty level to the amount of tangible incentives earned. Given the recent ARFID literature, it is notable that there were no other therapies during this treatment programme and we did not use cognitive or family-based components, medication, or multiple disciplines in a hospitalisation. We also did not use any physical guidance and all bites were taken completely independently. The bites were simply placed on a plate stationary in front of the participant on the table. We also did not use any food rewards and at the end, the participant was simply earning time with highly preferred items and activities.
Abstract: There are well-established empirically-supported treatments for paediatric feeding disorders (avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder; ARFID); however, more research is needed on their sole use, outside of specialised multidisciplinary feeding hospitals, and with older ages. Additionally, there is little research on the use of an exit criterion treatment. An 11-year-old male participated in a 2-week in-home programme. Treatment was solely behaviour-analytic and consisted of demand fading, choice, differential attention, contingent access, and exit criterion. We conducted repeated edible preference assessments and used a changing criterion single-case experimental design across three food variety groups of decreasing preference. Variety reached 79 foods across food groups and 100% of goals were met. Caregivers reported high social acceptability and at 2-year follow-up the problem still resolved.
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