Approximately 4.5 million Americans have an intellectual or developmental disability. Concern is increasing about these individuals' nutrition-related behavior and its implications for their health. This article reports on a systematic search of the current literature listed in the PsycINFO and PubMed databases related to nutritional status of adults with intellectual or developmental disabilities. The authors used key terms for nutrition, secondary conditions, and intellectual and developmental disability and categorized literature pertaining to nutrition-related studies of adults with intellectual or developmental disabilities as follows: dietary intake studies, anthropometric assessments of nutritional risks, biochemical indexes, and clinical evaluations.

Pope (1992) asserted that there was a significant need to examine secondary conditions among individuals with development disabilities. In the present study we focused on that need. The development of a secondary conditions surveillance instrument is described, as are the results of a pilot survey conducted with adults receiving state developmental disabilities program supports and with their direct-care service providers. Results of a pilot survey are presented to illustrate how survey data might be used to improve systems of services and supports to enhance the health and participation of adults with developmental disabilities in community life.

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The authors examine the effects that result when 9-month-old deaf and hearing infants break eye contact during face-to-face interactions with their deaf or hearing mothers. Of particular interest are mothers' responses when their infant looks away, and mothers' degree of success at regaining visual attention by using active bids in either the tactile, visual, or auditory modes. The authors also examine instances of maternal observing and waiting for the infant to reinitiate visual contact. For deaf infants, visual and tactile modalities are particularly important for communicating, interacting, and gaining information about their environment. While hearing parents have been shown to compensate intuitively for a deaf child's inability to perceive auditory cues (Koester, 1992, 1995), deaf parents may offer important insights into the use of other modalities to elicit and maintain a deaf infant's attention. Results of the study indicate a greater reliance among deaf mothers on visual strategies to regain infant attention, and a greater emphasis on vocalizations by hearing mothers, regardless of infant hearing status.

Background  Adults with intellectual or developmental disabilities need dietary monitoring but are not likely to be able to provide accurate dietary intake data via traditional methods. Pilot study efforts to meet their support needs with a novel and practical approach to dietary intake data collection are described in this brief report. Materials and Method  Still photography kits were used by nine adult volunteer participants with intellectual disabilities who lived in group homes or in semi‐independent living arrangements to capture images of the food they consumed over 24 h. Results  Use of photographs during dietary intake interviews improved the reliability of the participants’ responses. Mean reliability ratings improved from ‘Indiscernible/Poor’ (mean range 1.0–1.7) to ‘Good/Excellent’ (mean range 3.6–5.0). Conclusions  Our preliminary data imply that Food on Film is an effective and appropriate tool for use in community settings and warrants further testing.