Peer-reviewed article
Parental insights about supports for children with disabilities who are restricted eaters.
Fraser R, Bulkeley K, Barton R ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This qualitative study explores parents' experiences with support services for children with disabilities who have restricted eating patterns. Seven parents were interviewed about their views on the help they received for managing their children's limited diets. Parents found that support was most helpful when clinicians respected their knowledge, tailored strategies to individual children, and considered the whole family situation. Rigid, one-size-fits-all approaches often made parental stress worse and were seen as less useful.
Key points
- Restricted eating in children with disabilities has consequences beyond nutrition
- Parents described variable access to services and different types of support
- Responsive, family-centred approaches where clinicians acknowledged parental expertise were perceived as more helpful
- Rigid or prescriptive standardised approaches were often experienced as misaligned with individual child needs and increased parental stress
- There is a need for practice shifts towards family-centred, capacity-building services with responsive approaches to mealtimes
Limitations
This is a small qualitative study with seven parents and provides insights into parents' perceptions rather than objective measures of service effectiveness or health outcomes. The country where the research was conducted is not specified in the metadata or abstract.
Abstract
Introduction Restricted eating-where children eat less than 30 foods, eliminate whole food groups, or avoid mealtimes-has far-reaching consequences beyond nutrition. Due to this complexity, parents may seek help from multiple health professionals. Although literature reports on various supports, there is limited understanding of parents' experiences. This research aims to explore parents' perspectives on supports provided to children with disabilities who have been identified as restricted eaters. Methods A constructivist qualitative design with reflexive inductive thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews with seven parents of children with restricted eating was employed. Consumer and community involvement There was no consumer or community involvement in this study. Findings Parents described factors impacting access to services and a variety of supports that can be described on two axes: (a) focus of support and (b) responsiveness of support. Parents highlighted that supports on the more responsive end of the continuum-where clinicians acknowledged parental expertise, adapted strategies to individual child needs, and attended to family context-were perceived as more helpful. Conversely, rigid or prescriptive approaches were often experienced as misaligned with their child's needs, increasing parental stress and reducing perceived usefulness. Conclusion The findings of this study highlight a need to critically appraise standardised structured approaches. Recommendations have been made to support shifts in practice towards services that are family-centred, focussed on capacity building, and promote responsive approaches to mealtimes.