Background: The Autism Eating Problems and Patterns Questionnaire (AEPPQ) was developed as a comprehensive assessment of children with ASD. The aim of this study was to determine AEPPQ`s reliability and validity.
Methods: Parents of 69 boys with ASD, mean age of 4 years and 10 months, and 85 typically developed children matched by age and gender, completed AEPPQ, which includes 3 parts: General information relating to eating habits, a Likert scale part that addresses 7 domains of eating problems, and a food list aimed at assessing the actual diet of the child by means of types and variety of eaten foods.
A 3-phase study was conducted: 1) constructing the questionnaire, including content validity and factor analysis 2) ascertaining internal consistency reliability, and 3) ascertaining discriminative validity.
Results. Factor analysis of the 46 items revealed 7 factors that constructed different domains, namely: Chewing and swallowing problems, Food avoidance, Eating selectivity, Sameness and rigidity in eating, Eating rituals, Excessive eating and Mealtime behavior problems.
Internal consistency reliability of the AEPPQ`s subscales range from a high to very high Cronbach’s alpha of r=.82 to .94.
Multiple Analysis of Variance (MANOVA) showed significant differences between the groups in their eating habits )F (6,69) =24.13 ,p<0.001, η²=.65 (thus establishing the questionnaire`s discriminant validity .
Conclusions: AEPPQ is a reliable and valid tool to assess eating problems, specifically various kinds of food selectivity of children with ASD, and may therefore serve as the first step of intervention aimed at improving eating problems of those with ASD.
