We’re back to finish up Lucas’s story today. You can find part 3 [here], part 2 [here] and part 1[here]. Today we’re tackling his limited safe food list and how that directly impacted his regulation.
Lucas’s Safe Foods
Lucas had around 30 foods in his safe food list, which, by feeding therapy standards, is considered “typical” and wouldn’t warrant intervention. However, of the 30 foods, he had almost no fruits and vegetables (he ate an applesauce pouch and sometimes freeze dried strawberries).
Amy and Trevor had the following supports in place:
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Consulting with a nutritionist to help with mealtime routines
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Practicing division of responsibility (an approach that encourages parents to decide what food to put on the plate while the child decides how much or what they actually eat off the plate; no additional pressure beyond that)
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Always ensuring he has a safe food on his plate, in addition to new or less preferred food.
Amy mentioned that Lucas was pretty open to exploring food on his plate with his hands, but they never got past the “touching” step with food exploration. They had been stuck in this phase for quite some time without making progress.
Food Chaining
In the SOS feeding therapy approach, food chaining is when you work towards a child’s goal food by exposing them to other food with similar properties first. So, finding other food that has a similar shape or color to the goal food. Ideally, you have a few different food items within the chain to give them some time to mentally adjust to sensory properties of the goal food.
Amy said one of their goal foods was bell peppers- something that their family frequently ate with dinner. We spoke about how there can be quite a big difference in texture and taste depending on if the bell pepper is raw or cooked, and perhaps seeing cooked bell pepper (which is often more wet, oily, “slimy” looking) on his plate might be too much of a sensory nightmare for him to want to taste it. So we focused on trying a strip of raw orange bell pepper.
An orange veggie straw would be a good starting food since it shares a similar shape and color to the bell pepper, and is something that he already willingly takes and accepts. The rest of the food chain is made up of food that is new, but similar enough to both an orange veggie straw and a bell pepper.
Here’s what a sample food chain would look like:
