Despite anecdotal reports of children being more sensitive to texture than adults, and of texture being one of the main drivers of food aversions, there is a paucity of scientific knowledge on the influence of texture perception on food choice in children. The primary goals of this study were to assess the use of a modified letter-identification task to study lingual tactile acuity, one aspect of oral sensitivity, in children and to examine age-related differences in sensitivity. The secondary goal was to explore whether lingual tactile acuity and age relate to various measures of food choice and preference. To this end, children 7-10 years old (31 girls, 21 boys) and their mothers were tested using identical procedures. To assess lingual tactile acuity, children and mothers were asked to use the tips of their tongues to identify raised alphabetical letters of varying size (2.5-8.0 mm) on Teflon strips. To relate lingual tactile acuity to food texture preferences, a forced-choice questionnaire assessed preferences for foods similar in flavor but different in texture (e.g., smooth versus crunchy peanut butter). Children were able to complete the lingual acuity task as well as their mothers and took less time to assess each letter stimulus (p < 0.001); however, there were no age-related differences in lingual acuity (p = 0.14). Age, but not lingual acuity, related to food texture preferences: mothers preferred harder foods (p < 0.001) and those containing more particles (p < 0.04) than did children, although children's preferences became more adult-like with increasing age. The availability of a rapid, child-friendly method for assessing oral sensitivity opens up new possibilities of examining differences in oral tactile perceptions across the life span. That food preferences changed with age and were not related to oral sensitivity underscores the fact that factors such as experience, culture and family food practices have a significant impact on children's food texture preferences.

中文翻译：

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儿童及其母亲的语言触觉敏锐度和食物质地偏好

尽管有传闻称儿童比成人对质地更敏感，并且质地是厌恶食物的主要驱动因素之一，但关于质地感知对儿童食物选择的影响的科学知识很少。本研究的主要目标是评估使用修改后的字母识别任务来研究儿童的语言触觉敏锐度（口腔敏感性的一个方面），并检查与年龄相关的敏感性差异。次要目标是探索舌触觉敏锐度和年龄是否与食物选择和偏好的各种措施有关。为此，7-10 岁的儿童（31 名女孩，21 名男孩）和他们的母亲使用相同的程序进行了测试。为了评估舌触觉敏锐度，要求儿童和母亲使用他们的舌尖识别聚四氟乙烯条上不同大小（2.5-8.0 毫米）的凸起字母。为了将舌触觉敏锐度与食物质地偏好联系起来，一项强制选择问卷评估了对味道相似但质地不同的食物的偏好（例如，光滑的花生酱与松脆的花生酱）。儿童能够像他们的母亲一样完成语言敏锐度任务，并且评估每个字母刺激所需的时间更少（p < 0.001）；然而，舌敏度没有与年龄相关的差异（p = 0.14）。年龄，但不是舌敏度，与食物质地偏好有关：与儿童相比，母亲更喜欢较硬的食物 (p < 0.001) 和含有更多颗粒的食物 (p < 0.04)，尽管随着年龄的增长，儿童的偏好变得更像成人。评估口腔敏感度的快速、儿童友好的方法的可用性为检查整个生命周期中口腔触觉感知的差异开辟了新的可能性。食物偏好随年龄而变化，并且与口腔敏感度无关，这强调了这样一个事实，即经验、文化和家庭饮食习惯等因素对儿童的食物质地偏好有显着影响。