Nutritional Screening in Children with Neurodevelopmental and Neuromotor Disabilities: Lessons from a Cross-Sectional Clinical Assessment

Background/Objectives: Children with neurodevelopmental and neuromotor disabili-ties may be vulnerable to both excess adiposity and undernutrition, while the inter-pretation of simple anthropometric measures can be challenging when functional im-pairment, feeding difficulties, medication exposure, and body-composition differences are present. This exploratory cross-sectional study reports a single clinical assessment performed by the authors between February and April 2023 in a rehabilitation setting. Its objectives were to describe weight-status categories in the assessed children and to examine what practical lessons the assessment provides for disability-sensitive nutri-tional screening. Methods: Twenty children aged 9–15 years with spastic quadriplegia (n = 10), autism spectrum disorder (n = 5), or attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (n = 5) underwent a one-time assessment. Weight, height, diagnosis, ongoing rehabilita-tion, medication classes, and maternal anthropometry were recorded. Pediatric BMI was interpreted using age- and sex-specific categories. Given the small heterogeneous sample, analyses were descriptive. Results: Ten children (50%) were classified as hav-ing obesity, three (15%) as overweight, and seven (35%) as healthy weight. Six of the ten children with obesity had mothers with overweight or obesity. The assessment al-so highlighted clinically relevant domains that had not been incorporated systemati-cally, including structured dietary intake, feeding and swallowing difficulties, stand-ardized functional classification, physical activity, body composition, and detailed medication exposure. Conclusions: The findings should be interpreted as lessons from a small real-world clinical assessment rather than as a comprehensive nutrition-al-status evaluation or prevalence estimate. They support the use of a standardized, disability-sensitive screening framework that combines appropriate anthropometry with feeding, dietary, functional, medication, activity, and family-context information.