11th September 2012

From Star Online

FOR parents of children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), meal times can be challenging and stressful. Studies have shown that children with ASD can have a wide spectrum of feeding problems, including food selectivity, food sensitivity, problematic meal time behaviour and eating non-food items such as paper or clay.

But a Malaysian PhD student in the United Kingdom (UK) is developing a tool kit to help professionals identify and deal with the problems before they become entrenched habits.

Noor Safiza Mohamad Nor, who is studying at Newcastle University says: "ASDs are complex disorders and have been a major area of concern of many researchers and clinicians."

"These problems are likely to contribute to other health problems for the child, as well as having potential financial and social impacts for the families."

Although ASD is fairly common and affects approximately 1% of the population, at present there is no standardised tool available for professionals working in the community to identify issues in a systematic way.

Noor Safiza is designing a brief questionnaire and information pack which can be used by a range of community professionals so that they can identify these problems at an early stage.

"If we can help professionals recognise the problems earlier, they can provide appropriate initial information and prompt advice for parents as soon as the problems have been recognised.

"This, we hope, will support parents who are already in a difficult position, and prevent the feeding problems and gut symptoms becoming more severe," she says.

Her main academic supervisor Prof Ann Le Couteur, Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, says: "This project is an exciting and innovative study to develop a brief questionnaire designed to assist community professionals, including healthcare professionals and teachers, working with young children with ASD and their families."

"This PhD study has the potential for making a very real difference for children with ASD and their families," she adds.

Noor Safiza, who obtained an honours degree in nutrition and dietetics from Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, says she became interested to develop the tool kit because there is a lack of experts and specialists, especially dietitians, who deal with ASD in Malaysia.

"Many children in Malaysia now have been diagnosed with autism and I feel that I need to support these children and their families.

"I have been working with children with autism for the past eight years, and it was a great challenge for me as a healthcare professional and also the parents to manage some of the problems," she says.

Noor Safiza currently works for the Health Ministry as a paediatric dietician, and will return to Malaysia when she finishes her PhD.

She hopes the clinical applications and research evaluation of the questionnaire and information pack that she has developed during her PhD will continue, with the eventual goal being that they become widely used in Malaysia and abroad.

"In the future, I hope to train more health professionals and teachers in this field so that they can use the tool kit as part of their practice," she says.