Document Type

Dissertation

College

College of Arts and Sciences

Department

Psychology

Degree

PhD in Behavior Analysis

Dissertation Defense Date

2026-04-10

First Committee Member

Thompson, Rachel H

Second Committee Member

Ahearn, William H

Third Committee Member

Zarcone, Jennifer R

Additional Committee Member(s)

Kwak, Daniel

Abstract

There is a breadth of behavior analytic research in the treatment of food selectivity and refusal in children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and other developmental disabilities (Bachmeyer, 2009; Ledford et al., 2018; Williams & Sieverling, 2023), but many studies are conducted in clinics, hospitals, or homes by researchers, and use escape prevention as a primary component of intervention (Ledford et al., 2018; Saini et al., 2019). Recent research has prioritized the identification of antecedent and reinforcement-based interventions without the use of escape prevention in the treatment of food selectivity (see Tereshko et al., 2021, for a review), and Ledford et al. (2018) called for the implementation of feeding interventions by non-researchers in addition to the use of component analyses to evaluate necessary intervention components when treating food selectivity. In the current study, school staff were trained to implement a component analysis to identify the most effective treatment package to increase consumption for 3 participants who refused at least 2 major food groups prior to the study. Four interventions were evaluated within the component analysis: edible reinforcement alone, a reinforcement package consisting of edible reinforcement, 1 minute escape and 1 min tangible access, stimulus fading, and demand fading. Results were idiosyncratic across participants and foods. 12 out of 22 novel foods targeted were consumed by the end of the study (about 55%), and intervention effects were replicated using a reversal design for 9 of these 12 foods. The study led to three participants consuming 33%, 71%, and 67% of target novel foods. Overall, staff implemented procedures with a high level of fidelity, and results of the error analysis may inform future research on interventions for food selectivity in school settings.

Download

Share

COinS