Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) experience eating problems, including selective eating, clumsiness, and leaving the table during meals as well as difficulty in mastication. This study aimed to determine the lip, tongue, and jaw movements of young children with ASD. Oral function was assessed from the video recordings of 25 children with ASD and 24 children with typical development (TD) during meals. An assessment checklist of oral function was established based on previous studies and other reference materials. The checklist was used as an evaluation standard after verifying the interrater reliability. The Mann–Whitney U test was employed for between-group comparisons. Lip closure during mastication was more immature in the ASD group than in the TD group. Lip closure during food ingestion and tongue and jaw movements exhibited no significant differences between the groups, although many children in the ASD group displayed an immature development level in these measures. The results indicate that dietary support for young children with ASD must take immature oral function into account when selecting foods and identifying suitable meal forms.

In Japan, selective mutism (SM) symptoms are assessed using the Selective Mutism Questionnaire-Revised (SMQ-R). This study aimed to investigate SM treatment studies in Japan by analyzing changes in SMQ-R scores related to interventions and comparing the findings with the results of international studies that used the original Selective Mutism Questionnaire (SMQ). Based on a previous scoping review of clinical reports on SM in Japan, five articles that discussed the research on 28 participants were selected and compared with eight studies that were conducted on a total of 421 participants from international clinical research meta-analyses. Compared with international studies, research in Japan demonstrated higher individualization and longer intervention duration. Further, interventions in schools and public settings were not implemented, SM symptom improvements were smaller, and assessments of comorbidity and follow-up were lacking. To improve SM treatment in Japan, elements of behavioral therapy, which is predominantly used in international studies, need to be incorporated. Moreover, collaboration should be promoted across medical facilities, schools, and homes; and comprehensive assessment and follow-up must be ensured.

Sequential stimulus pairing (SSP) is a teaching strategy in word and letter reading for children with developmental disabilities. However, in certain cases, SSP fails to promote the acquisition of letter–sound knowledge. This study examined the complementary effectiveness of a matching-to-sample (MTS) training package for two children with developmental disabilities who did not respond to SSP. For one participant, the MTS package included visual discrimination of written letters and auditory discrimination of letter–sounds. The other participant was given the MTS package, which included a teaching strategy for incorporating the participant’s interests into the letter–sound phrase. The study then compared the test scores for reading letters between the baseline (SSP) and intervention (MTS package) phases. The number of correct responses to letter reading increased after training with the MTS package. These results indicated that a training package using the MTS format is effective if the SSP fails to promote learning of the letter–sound stimulus relations.