Autism or Pervasive Developmental Disorder-Not Otherwise Specified

1996), and unusual mealtime behavior (e.g., Powell, Hecimovic, & Christensen, 1992). These reports were largely anecdotal, however; no systematic, objective evaluations of the prevalence or nature of feeding patterns displayed by children with ASD have been reported to date. Some investigators have attempted to determine the prevalence of feeding problems in the broad pop-ulation of individuals with developmental delays. For example, it has been estimated that more than 30 % of people with developmental delays have some form of feeding difficulty (Gouge & Ekvall, 1975; Palmer, Thompson, & Linscheid, 1975), and an estimated 80% of individuals with severe to profound mental re-tardation have a feeding disorder (Perske, Clifton, McClean, & Stein, 1977). It is noteworthy that an estimated 45 % of all typically developing children Aberrant eating habits were included among the early diagnostic indicators of autism (Ritvo & Free-man, 1978). Current diagnostic criteria for autism and other pervasive developmental disorders do not include aberrant eating. Nonetheless, there have been numer-ous reports of feeding problems in children with autism or pervasive developmental disorder-not otherwise specified (PDD-NOS). (Hereafter, the term autism spectrum disorder, or ASD, will be used to encompass both diagnoses). Published reports have included de-scriptions of children with ASD who exhibited food and/or texture selectivity (e.g., Burd et al., 1995), re