Previous research has demonstrated that escape extinction (EE) is a necessary component of treatment for pediatric feeding disorders in most cases (e.g., Ahearn, Kerwin, Eicher, Shantz, & Swearingin, 1996; Patel, Piazza, Martinez, Volkert, & Santana, 2001; Reed, Piazza, Patel, Layer, Bachmeyer, Bethke, & Gutshall, 2004). Their clinical experience is that EE is not always effective when used alone, which necessitates the use of alternative and/or additional procedures. Although researchers have evaluated the effectiveness of treatment procedures individually, the overall effectiveness of these procedures has not been evaluated on a large scale. In the present paper, they examined 135 data sets from children referred for treatment of a pediatric feeding disorder. The researchers analyzed how often EE-based procedures were effective in increasing acceptance and mouth clean (a product measure of swallowing) and decreasing inappropriate mealtime behavior. They also analyzed how often it was necessary to use alternative and/or additional procedures when EE was not effective. They identified the procedures that were used and evaluated their effectiveness in treating the target behaviors noted above.
CE: 3.0 credits BACB