Abstract
Children with developmental disabilities (DD) exhibit feeding and swallowing difficulties, which can have an impact on nutritional, developmental, and psychological aspects. The existing tools assess the nature of feeding problems and behaviors only. The present study aimed to assess the physical, functional, and emotional domains in children with DD with feeding issues using Feeding handicap index for children (FHI-C). For clinical validation, FHI-C was administered on the parents/caregivers of 60 children with cerebral palsy, 61 with autism spectrum disorder, 59 with intellectual disability and 60 typically developing children in the age range of 2 to 10 years. The results revealed that the mean scores (Total FHI-C and FHI-C domain scores) were significantly higher for all three clinical groups than for the control group, which revealed good clinical validity. Also, FHI-C was found to have significantly high test–retest reliability. The study presents a valid and reliable tool for assessing the psychosocial handicapping effects of feeding problems in children with DD. FHI-C provides a holistic picture about the psychosocial impact of feeding problems in children with DD and will assist the clinicians in prioritizing the goals for feeding therapy. The scores obtained can be used as reference for pre and post therapy comparison purposes.
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Appendices
Appendix 1
Feeding Handicap Index-Children (FHI-C)
Other Significant Findings
Rating Scale for Parent/Caregivers
Please circle the number that matches the severity of your child’s feeding difficulty (1- no difficulty at all; 4- some problem is present; 7- the worse problem my child could have).
Rating Scale for the Examiner
Appendix 2
Mean and standard deviation (SD) values of FHI-C for the three clinical groups and the control group for the FHI-C domains and total FHI-C scores
Domains | FHI values | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
CP group (n=60) | ASD group (n=61) | ID group (n=59) | Control group (n=60) | |
Physical | 15.91±8.79 | 8.41±6.42 | 9.31±6.571 | 1.68±2.20 |
Functional | 5.45±4.43 | 3.89±3.82 | 3.41±2.972 | 1.35±1.31 |
Emotional | 1.31±1.52 | 3.30±3.77 | 2.05±1.888 | 0.56±0.87 |
Total | 22.65±12.67 | 15.59±9.95 | 14.76±9.956 | 3.53±3.35 |
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Shabnam, S., Swapna, N. Clinical Validation of Feeding Handicap Index for Children (FHI-C). J Autism Dev Disord 53, 4412–4423 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-022-05699-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-022-05699-5