A look at food issues accompanying Autism Spectrum Disorders
Last week I gave a brief overview of what Autism is and some of the behavioral and psychological issues that go along with the Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD).
Do you remember when your child was between the infant stage (when they would eat almost anything) and the toddler stage (where they suddenly developed definite ideas about what they would and wouldn’t eat)?
Eventually, most kids will try new foods and have a more varied diet.
With autistic kids, food idiosyncracies (for lack of a better word) are not that of a child trying to take control over a situation.
These choices are based on some of the behavioral and psychological and even some physical issues.
Some children with ASD want all of their foods to be the same color or texture. (For example, I have a patient who pretty much will only eat crunchy foods.)
Imagine the disruption to the family when you make a meal for your family but have to prepare separate foods for the child with ASD?
Imagine having a child who will not eat ANY fruits or vegetables, or they may not like milk/dairy products?
Imagine having to over salt all of their foods?
Okay, I can hear some of you saying, “Why don’t they just not give into the kids? They’ll eat what is put in front of them if they are hungry enough.”
Unfortunately, they won’t. I had a mom try that approach, and her child did not eat anything for over 12 hours.
If you research this on line you won’t believe the stories you’ll read.
You may wonder, is there ANYTHING that can be done to help with eating issues of children with ASD?
Fortunately, the answer is yes. However, there are no quick fixes or guarantees.
Some of these children have such severe sensitivities to food because of sight, taste, texture that even having the food near them may cause them to gag.
There are behavior therapies and occcupational therapists who work with these children using desensitization.
The goal of desensitization is to overcome this avoidance pattern by gradually exposing individuals to the phobic object until it can be tolerated.
This will be challenging for the individual at first to deal with the fear, but gradually most will overcome this fear.
Next, the family may try the new food and demonstrate their enjoyment of it.
With gradual introduction, and no negative effects from exposure, the child will usually try the new food-eventually. Eventually is the key word.
This could take months.
Next week I will discuss the Gluten-Free, Casein- (milk protein) Free Diet (GFCF) that has been adopted by some parents for their ASD children.
