Caregiver perspectives regarding the impact of feeding difficulties on mealtime participation for primary school-aged autistic children and their families
Bibliographic record
Abstract
PURPOSE: Although up to 89% of autistic children experience feeding difficulties, little is known about the impact of these difficulties on mealtime participation. The aim of this study was to explore the impact of feeding difficulties on the mealtime participation of autistic children and their families based on caregiver experiences. METHOD: Participants were 78 caregivers who completed online surveys for 80 children (5-12 years) with a formal diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). The online survey contained eight open-ended questions exploring how children participated in mealtimes at home, in the community, at celebrations, on holidays, and at school; as well as exploring cultural influences on mealtimes. RESULT: Using thematic analysis, three themes were identified: 1) Participation at home, emphasised the individualised nature of experiences and impacts for children and families, while 2) participation in the community, highlighted the range of contexts in which children and families experience challenges. 3) Influence and experience, accounted for cultural and social factors that mediated the child and family's impacts and experience, including a lack of understanding in the community. CONCLUSION: The findings highlight that autistic children with feeding difficulties and their families may experience a range of mealtime participation challenges. Caregivers also reported feelings of failure, stress, and judgement; some of which stemmed from interactions with extended family, friends, school, and society which increased their difficulties when navigating mealtime participation. Addressing the challenges requires a strengths-based approach including creating inclusive and accessible community environments that accommodate diverse feeding preferences and support the well-being of neurodivergent children and their families.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.007 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.003 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".