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ABSTRACT

Feeding is an act of nourishment and wellbeing for humans and for animals. WHO classifies disruption of daily life wellbeing of an individual due to difficulty to eat be categorized as feeding disorders. The Behavioral Pediatric Feeding Assessment Scale (BPFAS) is a tool which helps in determining factors leading to associated feeding disorders pertaining to typical behaviors and its patterns. This study aims at determining the clinical utility of the Marathi translation of BPFAS across children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and cerebral palsy (CP). A total of 53 participants, 26 with cerebral palsy and 27 individuals with ASD, have been considered and categorized across three groups aging from nine months to two years, 2-5 years and 5-7 years. Results revealed the overall mean score obtained under the ASD category was 79.89 with SD being 11.55. While for the CP group, the overall mean score obtained was 89.9259, which is slightly higher than what was obtained under the ASD category. When ANOVA was done to determine if there is any distinction between the two groups of disorders in terms of feeding and it was seen that there was no significant difference obtained between the two groups (p = 0.344) and within the two groups (p = 0.077). This indicated that both the groups had similar levels of feeding problems, and the scores also reflected the same. The study concluded that BPFAS is a highly efficient tool to diagnose feeding issues across multiple groups of disorders due to its resemblance to the concerns parents face while feeding children with behavioral issues.

Keywords: Feeding issues, food intolerances, autism spectrum disorder, cerebral palsy, BPFAS