Association for Behavior Analysis International

Children with and without disabilities may encounter feeding difficulties. This difficulties can include but are not limited to food selectivity by texture, color, and manner of presentation. Feeding difficulties may also include rigidity related to the feeder and/or meal time location. This session will provide a discussion of the issues related to the provision of behavioral feeding services to children with and without disabilities. The first speaker will identify some of the barriers to behavioral feeding programs. She will then identify strategies for reducing the response effort for parents. The second speaker will discuss the importance of individualizing the assessment and intervention process. For example, various medical assessments may be needed prior to the onset of services. Additionally, parents and children have distinct preferences that should be considered when selecting intervention components. Finally, planning and ensuring generalization and maintenance of feeding skills is critical. Thus, the third speaker will identify strategies that have been used successfully to promote both maintenance and generalization. The discussant will summarize the issues and facilitate question and answers from participants.

In the course of completing a master's thesis, the author encountered a number of barriers to successful therapy implementation. The purpose of this paper is to describe the study, identify the barriers, discuss strategies to remove barriers, and discuss suggestions for future research.

In the process of completing a master's thesis on behavioral feeding, the author encountered several risks to the therapy process. This paper will present the study, identify the risks encountered, discuss how to prevent and address risks, and discuss strategies for future research.

This author coordinates an outpatient behavioral feeding clinic. She will identify strategies used to address maintenance and generalization of acquired feeding skills. Case studies will be used to illustrate the effectiveness of intervention as well as maintenance and generalization.