Anna Wallisch
University of Kansas, KS·Psychology·Early-career
Up to 83% of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have challenging eating behaviors, such as very limited food choices. These behaviors carry health risks such as obesity and malnutrition.
- Fields
Psychology
Medicine & Clinical Research
Public Health & Epidemiology
- Topics
autism spectrum disorder
challenging eating behaviors
feeding problems
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jul 2028
What they work on
- Examine physiological synchrony, how closely parent and child body arousal track each other, using wearable biosensors during home mealtimes for children with autism and typically developing children.
- Determine how real-time parent, child and environmental factors predict a child's food intake at meals, using ecological momentary assessment, brief in-the-moment surveys.
- Explore how gut microbiome diversity relates to parent-child physiological synchrony, challenging eating behaviors and dietary intake in children with autism.
More about the research
Many of these children also have gut problems. Mealtimes can be stressful for parents, and there is no standard treatment. One reason is that the causes vary from child to child and even from meal to meal. This project takes a biopsychosocial approach, which looks at biological, psychological and social factors together. The goal is to find the mechanisms behind these behaviors so that treatments can be personalized.
Why it matters
Picky and restricted eating in children with autism can lead to obesity, malnutrition and serious family stress, and there is currently no standard treatment. This work could guide personalized treatments for these eating behaviors. It may also point to biomarkers, such as body-arousal patterns or gut microbiome measures, that help predict which children respond to treatment.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Emily Melnick
University of Denver, CO·Public Health & Epidemiology·Early-career
Test whether limited neighborhood food access at age 2 predicts less responsive parental feeding practices and less nutritious foods served at ages 3–5, using geocoded data from the ECHO and Care cohorts.
Rebecca Schwarzlose
Washington University in St Louis, MO·Neuroscience·Early-career
Test whether neural suppression, the reduced brain response to expected sensations, is weaker in children with sensory over-responsivity, using existing brain imaging data.
Margaret Reynolds
Washington University in St Louis, MO·Medicine & Clinical Research·Early-career
Measure gains in visual acuity, using Teller acuity testing, in children with autism spectrum disorder after refractive surgery for refractive error that glasses cannot address.
The school
University of Kansas: 26 labs on PI Pages, $546M a year on research, 351 research doctorates a year.
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