Publications by authors named "Ashley Andersen"

Unlabelled: There is a dearth of published research evaluating behavior-analytic assessment and treatment of avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder (ARFID) given the recent revisions in the , Fifth Edition. In this study, therapists conducted periodic food preference assessments to help guide treatment for a typically developing child with ARFID and food selectivity. Further, therapists evaluated a treatment package including demand fading, escape prevention, and self-monitoring to increase food variety.

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Severe food selectivity places children at risk for nutrient deficiencies and long-term medical complications, if unaddressed. However, poor nutrition in highly selective eaters is often overlooked when considering other behavioral or medical concerns. Additionally, studies regarding food selectivity are sparse and limited to children with developmental delays.

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The necessity of treatment using telehealth was apparent during the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, as many practitioners were forced to use telehealth as a primary mode of service delivery. Although the telehealth model has been studied for different populations, little is known about its success when applied with children with feeding disorders and complex medical histories. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of using a telehealth model from the onset of treatment.

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Background: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of an interdisciplinary home-based feeding program, which is a unique service delivery model.

Methods: Data were provided on oral intake, tube feeding elimination, and weight for patients who were dependent on tube feedings ( = 78). Weight data were collected for patients who showed failure to thrive ( = 49).

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Functional analysis is the primary assessment used to determine the function of inappropriate mealtime behavior in children with feeding disorders. Based on single-case experimental design studies and recent reviews, the prevalence of negative reinforcement alone in the maintenance of inappropriate mealtime behavior appears to be much greater than positive reinforcement alone. We conducted a retrospective consecutive-controlled case series to determine the generality of previous findings.

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Functional analyses allow clinicians to develop treatment targeting the variables maintaining a child's inappropriate mealtime behavior (Bachmeyer et al., 2019). Extended functional analyses can be inefficient, potentially delaying the onset of treatment.

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Treatment for pediatric feeding disorders is imperative, so clinicians should alter the assessment and treatment process, making it is possible for caregivers to deliver via telehealth. Clinicians must first demonstrate that caregivers can conduct initial assessments in this format. We extended the literature on functional analysis of inappropriate mealtime behavior by demonstrating that caregivers can implement functional analysis procedures via telehealth to identify maintaining variables of inappropriate mealtime behavior.

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Applied behavior analysis has the most empirical support as intervention for pediatric feeding disorders, when a child does not eat or drink a sufficient quantity or variety of food to maintain proper nutrition. Interdisciplinary collaboration is crucial for diagnosis, referral, and management of pediatric feeding disorders because the etiology is complex and multifactorial. Thus, our aim is to provide information about how to recognize a feeding disorder, to delineate the environmental variables implicated in the etiology and maintenance of feeding disorders, and to provide recommendations for prevention and intervention for feeding disorders based on the applied-behavior analytic literature.

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Despite the ever-increasing throughput and steadily decreasing cost of next generation sequencing (NGS), whole genome sequencing of humans is still not a viable option for the majority of genetics laboratories. This is particularly true in the case of complex disease studies, where large sample sets are often required to achieve adequate statistical power. To fully leverage the potential of NGS technology on large sample sets, several methods have been developed to selectively enrich for regions of interest.

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Although autism is one of the most heritable neuropsychiatric disorders, its underlying genetic architecture has largely eluded description. To comprehensively examine the hypothesis that common variation is important in autism, we performed a genome-wide association study (GWAS) using a discovery dataset of 438 autistic Caucasian families and the Illumina Human 1M beadchip. 96 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) demonstrated strong association with autism risk (p-value < 0.

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