Abstract
The guardians of 123 infants with autistic spectrum disorder from 3 years old to 6 years old (ASD infants) and 131 infants without apparent developmental problems in nursery (normal infants) filled out the questionnaire survey on meals. A comparative examination among ages was carried out, and the following results were obtained.
(1) The number of ASD infants who reject some foods absolutely is much higher than those of normal infants and also the numbers of foodstuffs and food articles which ASD infants reject were much higher than those of normal infants.
Almost 10 % of ASD infants refused to eat more than 21 kinds of foodstuffs or food articles in all ages. The most plausible reasons for refusal to eat in ASD infants were the appearance of the foodstuffs or food articles；on the contrary, those of normal infants were varied. The mental ability of ASD infants showed no significant differences in the number of foodstuffs and food articles they reject.
(2) Among ASD infants, 60% of them refused to eat some foods which they had eaten before or 53% of them started to eat some foods which they had refused before. Similar episodes in normal infants could be seen： 14 % of them refused to eat and 11 % started to eat. Episodes of refusal to eat in ASD infants were significantly more common in the retarded group than in the mentally normal group.
(3) There is a high possibility of natural improvement of such so-called unbalanced diet. This fact is very important in the developmental education of ASD infants.
