Tips For Picky Eaters

The RDI Online Learning Community has a lot of great resources that can assist families with questions or areas where they are struggling with their child. It can also be a great support system as you may be able to offer advice or help to another family. This information was taken from a current parent discussion board:

Tips for Picky Eaters

Picky eaters are not uncommon among children with ASD and our consultants and parents are full of experience when it comes to trying ways to get children to eat new foods. Here are some suggestions from our discussion boards on how to get new foods into picky eaters' diets:

- Breathe and take your time: remember the child has a lot of control over this behavior and rushing it might not be the best way.

- I have found that he (son) likes helping me in the kitchen and especially cutting things up... he still very rarely eats them (cut fruit), but he is happy to touch them and will occasionally smell them or lick them or try a bit in his mouth.

- If taste is a big part of his picky eating, certainly small amounts of fruit in smoothies and jellies should be a way of gradually introducing fruits, away from needing the oral skills.

- Something we do with new foods is to slowly, slowly introduce them. For example, our son can eat peas, so we started out by putting a single pea on his plate. Over time he could tolerate the presence of the pea. Then we asked him to touch it to his lips (he didn't have to put it in his mouth). After he could tolerate that, we asked him to touch it to his tongue... and so on.

If you have any questions on how to find the discussion board in your own family profile, please send an email to:

nicole@pryorconsulting.net