Despite advances in health care, many infants and children are at high risk for the development of feeding disorders including inadequate growth, developmental delay, and in some instances permanent retardation. Research at the Kennedy Institute over the past decade has documented methods for quantifying specific response catagories that comprise feeding disorders, developed successful behavioral intervention strategies that can be carried out in a 3-8 week intensive program, and demonstrated the contribution of mother-child interactions related to the prevalence and maintenance of feeding disorders. The present project proposes to investigate the factors that contribute to the development of these feeding disorders in the first year of life when the effects are most profound, and to identify those variables that can serve as early perdictors of these problems. Specifically, the project proposes: (1) to assess medical, nutritional, developmental, social, demographic, and behavioral factors of 100 mother-infant dyads during the first 18 months after the child's birth for infants who do and do not demonstrate feeding problems that result in inadequate nutritional intake; and (2) based on the result of this analysis to construct and validate a screening device for early identification of feeding problems. This proposed research will provide a better understanding of the bio-behavioral factors that contribute to feeding problems, permit the development and testing of an early intervention based upon our previous treatment research, and thus allow for cost/effectiveness comparisons of this behavioral intervention with traditional approaches.
