Food aversion in an autistic toddler

[Me2mommy2b]

Hello.  I'm a speech therapist who's working with an autistic toddler.  Even though I have experience working with autistic children, I've never worked with one who has food aversion.  Any suggestions or tips on how to work with this child?

[mum2beagain]

James had serious food aversions for a long time. He practically ate nothing but baby food and formula until he was 2 1/2 and was still eating mashed food textures at 3 1/2.

What worked best for us was stimulating his whole sensory systems particularly his sense of touch. We used lots of different textures and consistancies for him to feel with his hands; flour, rice, sand, jello, ice..the list goes on. Once he got used to those things we began to work on different food textures, flavors and colors (as oddly enough almost everything he would eat was orange!)

This is exactly what we did with James;

First of all with a new food he had to have it on his tray, not his plate, nothing more.
Then he had to have it on his plate, he didn't have to eat it.
Then we asked him to touch it.
The next time he had to take a bite, he could spit it out if he wanted.
Once he was willing to do that we asked him to chew and swallow one little piece.

This process was done over several days/weeks with one or two new food items at a time with lots of other foods he was accepting of included in the meal. It took a lot of time and patience just to get a dozen or so new foods into his diet.The first few took an age to get to the eating several bites stage. Once he began to explore more textures and flavors it became a little easier and we can now just skip right to the take one bite stage.

He is now five and a half and although he would still be classed as a fussy eater he will now eat a much wider range of foods and is a little more willing to try new things. We no longer have to cook separate meals or mash up foods especially for him. I still have to be careful with some foods as he has a very over active gag reflex but I can generally judge now a days the kind of foods that will cause that to happen.

[Me2mommy2b]

Thank you so much for sharing your experience with me.  That's what I did the first time I went into this child's home.  I asked for a piece of a banana to be placed on his tray and the second he saw it, he started gagging.  I didn't force it and took it away.  The next time I want to place it in front of him for a little longer and eventually touch it.