If you haven’t had a chance to listen to last week’s rebroadcast with Dr. Keith Williams, of the Hershey Medical Center Feeding Program, go back and check that out. Kelsey General is joining me for another round of top 5 questions. We are talking all about picky eaters and common feeding problems for children with autism.
As always the first step in the Turn Autism Approach is to assess. How is your child’s growth? Are they meeting height and weight milestones? In addition to these questions, keep a three-day food diary to monitor consumption, complete the self-care checklist (found in my free book resources), and create an Easy-Medium-Difficult list based on what your child will eat. Remember that this is a long game and you won’t go from Doritos to broccoli overnight.
Where is your child when they are eating? If they are eating mobile snacky foods around the house, that has got to stop. Start by serving all meals and snacks at the table to eliminate all-day grazing. To encourage table sitting, begin with foods from their easy list of foods they normally eat while walking around. Are they discouraged by the look of the food at the table? Kids often get used to colors and packaging, try serving foods from non-see-through, generic containers to break these associations. Just like any other new behavior, use reinforcements as your building and pairing the table.
Children over the age of 1, definitely before 2 should be weaned from a bottle and pacifier. There are many problems bottles and pacifiers can cause, not just with feeding but with speaking and oral development as well. Start by eliminating free access to bottles and use during set designated times each day. What are they drinking out of the bottle? Is it necessary nutritionally? If it’s not, eliminate it and begin teaching open cup and straw drinking, an important skill to be mastered at 18 months. Cups like the “Honey Bear” are great for teaching and encouraging straw use because you can squeeze the liquid to the top of the straw.
This is a big concern for safety. Eating non-edible items is known as Pica and is a medical condition. Determine what types of non-edible items your child is drawn to eat and remove their access to them. There are often underlying causes and motivations for Pica. Questions to consider when addressing this are, when does my child eat these non-food items? What foods is my child eating? Could my child have a nutritional deficiency? Seek evaluation and medical attention for Pica related concerns.
