title: Odor Perception in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder and its Relationship to Food Neophobia.
abstract: Atypical sensory functioning in Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) has been well documented in the last decade for the visual, tactile and auditory systems, but olfaction in ASD is still understudied. The aim of the present study was to examine whether children with ASD and neuro-typically (NT) developed children differed in odor perception, at the cognitive (familiarity and identification ability), sensorimotor (olfactory exploration) and affective levels (hedonic evaluation). Because an important function of the sense of smell is its involvement in eating, from food selection to appreciation and recognition, a potential link between odor perception and food neophobia was also investigated. To these ends, 10 children between 6 and 13 years old diagnosed with ASD and 10 NT control children were tested. To compare performance, 16 stimuli were used and food neophobia was assessed by the parents on a short food neophobia scale. Results revealed that (i) significant hedonic discrimination between attractive and aversive odors was observed in NT (p = 0.005; d = 2.378) and ASD children (p = 0.042; d = 0.941), and (ii) hedonic discrimination level was negatively correlated with food neophobia scores in ASD (p = 0.007) but not NT children. In conclusion, this study offers new insights into odor perception in ASD children, highlighting a relationship between odor hedonic reactivity and eating behavior. This opens up new perspectives on both (i) the role of olfaction in the construction of eating behavior in ASD children, and (ii) the measurement and meaning of food neophobia in this population.
authors.affiliation: Research Center in Neurosciences of Lyon, CNRS UMR5292, INSERM U1028, Claude Bernard University Lyon 1 Lyon, France ; Senso5 Foundation Sion, Switzerland ; Institute of Special Education, University of Fribourg Fribourg, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Anne-Claude
authors.initials: AC
authors.lastname: Luisier
authors.affiliation: Institute of Special Education, University of Fribourg Fribourg, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Genevieve
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Petitpierre
authors.affiliation: Research Center in Neurosciences of Lyon, CNRS UMR5292, INSERM U1028, Claude Bernard University Lyon 1 Lyon, France.
authors.forename: Camille
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Ferdenzi
authors.affiliation: Senso5 Foundation Sion, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Annick
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Clerc Bérod
authors.affiliation: Research Center in Neurosciences of Lyon, CNRS UMR5292, INSERM U1028, Claude Bernard University Lyon 1 Lyon, France ; Center for Food and Hospitality Research, Institut Paul Bocuse Ecully, France.
authors.forename: Agnes
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Giboreau
authors.affiliation: Research Center in Neurosciences of Lyon, CNRS UMR5292, INSERM U1028, Claude Bernard University Lyon 1 Lyon, France.
authors.forename: Catherine
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Rouby
authors.affiliation: Research Center in Neurosciences of Lyon, CNRS UMR5292, INSERM U1028, Claude Bernard University Lyon 1 Lyon, France.
authors.forename: Moustafa
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Bensafi
keywords: autism; exploratory behavior; food neophobia; hedonic evaluation; olfaction