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Dietary Factors Impact Developmental Trajectories in Young Autistic Children

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this research was to investigate the impact of dietary factors on developmental trajectories in young autistic children.

Methods

A gluten-free and casein-free diets, as well as six types of food (meat and eggs, vegetables, uncooked vegetables, sweets, bread, and “white soft bread that never molds”) were investigated observationally for up to three years in 5,553 children 2 to 5 years of age via parent-report measures completed within a mobile application. Children had a parent-reported diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD); 78% were males; the majority of participants resided in the USA. Outcome was monitored on five orthogonal subscales: Language Comprehension, Expressive Language, Sociability, Sensory Awareness, and Health, assessed by the Autism Treatment Evaluation Checklist (ATEC) (Rimland & Edelson, 1999) and Mental Synthesis Evaluation Checklist (MSEC) (Arnold & Vyshedskiy, 2022; Braverman et al., 2018).

Results

Consumption of fast-acting carbohydrates – sweets, bread, and “white soft bread that never molds” – was associated with a significant and a consistent Health subscale score decline. On the contrary, a gluten-free diet, as well as consumption of meat, eggs, and vegetables were associated with a significant and consistent improvement in the Language Comprehension score. Consumption of meat and eggs was also associated with a significant and consistent improvement in the Sensory Awareness score.

Conclusion

The results of this study demonstrate a strong correlation between a diet and developmental trajectories and suggest possible dietary interventions for young autistic children.

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Data Availability

De-identified raw data from this manuscript are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Code Availability Statement

Code is available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

We wish to thank all participants’ caregivers who found time to complete children’s assessments. The language therapy app used to collect the data presented in this manuscript was made possible by the contributions of Rita Dunn, Alexander Faisman, Jonah Elgart, Lisa Lokshina, and Yulia Dumov.

Funding

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Boston University, Boston, MA, 02215, USA

    Alexander Acosta & Andrey Vyshedskiy

  2. ImagiRation, Boston, MA, 02135, USA

    Alexander Acosta & Andrey Vyshedskiy

  3. Independent researcher, Newton, MA, 02459, USA

    Edward Khokhlovich

  4. ciTechCare, Leiria, Portugal

    Helena Reis

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Contributions

AV and EK designed the study. AV, AA and EK analyzed the data. AA, AV, and HR wrote the paper.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Andrey Vyshedskiy.

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Caregivers have consented to anonymized data analysis and publication of the results. The study was conducted in compliance with the Declaration of Helsinki (World Medical Association, 2013).

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Using the Department of Health and Human Services regulations found at 45 CFR 46.101(b)(4), the Biomedical Research Alliance of New York LLC Institutional Review Board (IRB) determined that this research project is exempt from IRB oversight.

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Acosta, A., Khokhlovich, E., Reis, H. et al. Dietary Factors Impact Developmental Trajectories in Young Autistic Children. J Autism Dev Disord (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-023-06074-8

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