Nutrition Therapy Approaches in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Abstract

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder that occurs in the early stages of development, characterized by limitations in social communication and interaction behaviors, repetitive limiting behaviors, and limited interests. Nutritional problems and gastrointestinal complaints seen in ASD have been known since the first diagnosis of the disease and are considered a feature of the disease. It is known that children with ASD have feeding problems five times more often than children with normal development. The most common nutritional problems seen in children with ASD are food selectivity, difficulty in eating skills, selective, strange, and unusual eating behavior, sensitivity to a particular presentation of food, avoidance of new foods, excessive and persistent intake of one type of food and meal time behavioral problems. Dietary approaches such as gluten-free, casein-free, ketogenic, special carbohydrate, Feingold, Candida body ecology, and eliminated allergy diets are applied. However, the evidence for these practices is limited. Therefore, it is recommended to monitor children with ASD in terms of inadequate and unbalanced nutrition and to consider feeding problems and malnutrition in applying restrictive and special diets.