Abstract

Objective: The study aims at: the evaluation of parental feeding practices’ of the children with autism, and identify the relationship between parental feeding practices and demographics’ variables of parents. Methodology: A descriptive study was conducted on parents of autistic kid in Baghdad city from the period of October 15, 2021 to April 18, 2022. A non-probability sample of 100 autistic children with100 of their parents. A survey is constructed for the determination of the study throughout a review of relevant literature. It composed of two parts; the chief part is concerned with sociodemographic features of the parents; the next part to assess feeding practices followed by parents towards autistic child which consists of (30) questions concerning 3 domains distributed as Behavioral feeding domain, Healthy feeding domain, and Guidance feeding domain. The validity and the reliability were achieved through the application of alpha Cronbach correlation coefficient (0.88) which means that the design of the questionnaire was valid for the study. Statistical analysis methods were used to analyze and evaluate the results of the study under the application of the statistical package (SPSS). Results: The study findings an demonstrate overall evaluation of the domains of parents’ feeding practices of behavioral feeding, healthy feeding and guidance feeding show that such practices have experienced moderate level of performance. Recommendations: The study recommends that: parents of autism children should be very well, focused on the importance of feeding practices. So, an instruction program can be designed, and implemented for such purpose.