How to Help>Confident Parenting>Feeding the Mind

Feeding the Mind, Not Just the Mouth

Eating is a social and communicative activity

With an autistic child, eating can easily become an activity that is:

• sensation-dominated, cutting out awareness of environment
• mindless/ unmentalised, preventing symbolisation and thinking
• anti-social, blocking communication with other people

The Autistic Child needs extra Help

through lively, human company from a warm interested adult

• to make eating into a social and communicative fun occasion,
• settting a reliable routine with clear boundaries:
  a) a regular place, a friendly atmosphere sitting at a table
  b) regular times: breakfast, lunch, snack, dinner
  c) after-school snack to be an interesting finger-food time
  d) food only when sitting down, and not all the/ any time
• encouraging ways of eating/ foods that require some effort, especially chewing, or using straw, knife and fork:
  a) avoid mushy foods and those that can be just sucked, especially starchy foods like bread, biscuits, bananas, milk, sweets, chocolate, sweet or too much of drinks
  b) avoid bottles/ teats and continuous eating/ grazing