would this be an external validitiy? Children with an absence of mealtime challenges were selected due to the exploratory nature of the study. That is, it was unknown whether the procedure would produce changes in food preferences, and the researcher did not want to prevent children with mealtime problems from accessing empiri- cally supported interventions. All three children could fol- low simple instructions, engaged in minimal challenging behavior, had generalized imitative repertoires, and had minimal to no interactions outside of research sessions with the interventionist (described below) before and dur- ing the study