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Abstract
Food selectivity by texture is relatively common in children. Treatments for food selectivity by texture have included components such as stimulus fading, reinforcement, and escape extinction. The purpose of the current study was to attempt to treat food selectivity by texture utilizing antecedent manipulations and reinforcement in the absence of escape extinction. The current study utilized texture fading and simultaneous presentation to treat food selectivity by texture in a young boy with autism. Experimenters successfully increased the boy's food consumption using this treatment package in a clinical setting. Then, the boy's parents were trained to implement procedures both in the clinical and home settings.
Keywords: differential reinforcement, feeding problems, food selectivity, parents, simultaneous presentation, simultaneous reinforcement, texture fading
Food selectivity by texture is relatively common in children. In fact, a study conducted by Field, Garland, and Williams (2003) found that 26% of children who participated presented with food selectivity by texture. This number was even higher at 31% for children with autism. Children presenting with food selectivity by texture tend to consume a small variety of textures and reject most novel textures. For example, parents of these children often report that their children are still eating jarred and pureed baby foods.
Treatments for food selectivity by texture have included components such as stimulus fading, reinforcement, and escape extinction (EE). For example, Luiselli and Gleason (1987) treated almost total food refusal in a 4-year-old girl who only consumed milk and occasionally pureed baby foods by gradually increasing the textures of foods, providing reinforcement contingent on consuming foods presented, and using EE in the form of physically guiding the girl to open her mouth by lightly separating her lips with one hand and inserting a spoon.
In another example, Shore, Babbitt, Williams, Coe, & Snyder (1998) treated various feeding problems in four children by gradually increasing the textures of the foods presented to participants, providing reinforcement contingent on accepting and swallowing foods, and using EE in the form of nonremoval of the spoon.
One common feature of these two studies is that in addition to using antecedent manipulations and reinforcement to treat feeding problems, EE was used. EE has been shown to be an instrumental component of treatments for feeding problems (Piazza, 2008), as oftentimes...