One Positive Approach to Treating Mealtime Behaviors | BCBA CEU | Learning | 1 Hour 

In this talk, the speaker discusses “food selectivity, not food refusal,” and emphasizes that food selectivity can also be called “picky eating.” The speaker also states, “I'm talking about meal time behavior,” and stresses involving others with medical expertise when food refusal is happening, including nutritionists and other professionals with medical knowledge.

The speaker describes escape extinction in the feeding context as “continued presentation of a non-perferred food until the child accepts the bite,” and gives non-removal of the spoon as one common procedure where the spoon “isn’t removed” and “escape isn’t allowed until the child accepts the bite.” The speaker notes concerns that these interventions can create ethical and logistical challenges and may not be readily implemented by family members, and states that “meal times are more than just acceptance.” They argue interventions should aim to create “enjoyable experiences with food” and describe a need for alternatives, including expanding research on observational learning.

The talk also describes baseline purposes related to a paired-stimulus preference assessment and mentions results where participants began selecting a low-preferred food following introduction of the intervention.