2 years old ASD and starving himself

February 9, 2005

Hi,

The intro foods from the Elaine's Web Site are really trick for

children in the autism spectrum. Could other parents please give me

suggestions on how to start the diet?

My son will not eat the same food every day, not even one day. He is

starving himself. Do you have any ideas?

Tks, Simone.

February 9, 2005

I know this is not the best advice, but it works for me when my two

year old starves herself. I put her in her booster seat in front of a

video. She is so entralled with the video that I put bites in her

mouth and she automatically chews. Not a good habit but works for me.

Kristy

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February 9, 2005

I was worried about the intro foods too b/c I thought for sure my son

would reject them all. Before I started SCD fully, we kept a few of his

preferred foods in the diet and used them as reinforcers for the new

foods (eggs, jello, etc.). It worked well to say " one bite of this and

then you get this. " Once he started eating the new foods (especially

eggs) he realized he liked them and they didn't make him sick. Once I

had a few foods to feed him that are intro lega, I did the intro diet

for three days (over the weekend). It was tough, but we got through

it. He does not like juice or jello, so he really wasn't getting much

sugar or carbs. I would give him favored toys to play with and then

follow him around with a bowl of jello, bribing him to take one bite.

This worked pretty well. The first food I added in after the intro was

bananas b/c he really likes those and it helped to get some sugar and

carbs into him. Very quickly after going on SCD, my son began eating

all kinds of new foods and is pretty willing to eat most things offered

to him - this is a major change for him. I would say the hard work of

getting started was definitely worth it in that regard. I still use

the favored food items to get him to try new foods. Once he tries them,

he will usually accept them w/o bribing. Also, we started using his

bribing meal times to have him make eye contact with us before he got

his reinforcer bite. We would withhold the bite until he looked at us

and then we would show a gradual smile come across our face and then nod

our head before giving the food to him. This has made a huge difference

in his spontaneously looking to us for communication. We later added a

head shake (to mean no) into this routine to prolong his looking and

then would nod (yes) and reward him. No I can use these types of

gestures in regular interaction without having to use language to prompt

him. There are some good suggestions on Pecanbread.com about intro

foods for kids that I found helpful too.

Good luck!

On Tuesday, February 8, 2005, at 05:23 PM, simonefilomeno wrote:

>

> Hi,

>

> The intro foods from the Elaine's Web Site are really trick for

> children in the autism spectrum. Could other parents please give me

> suggestions on how to start the diet?

>

> My son will not eat the same food every day, not even one day. He is

> starving himself. Do you have any ideas?

>

> Tks, Simone.

>

> For information on the Specific Carbohydrate Diet, please read the book

> _Breaking the Vicious Cycle_ by Elaine Gottschall and read the

> following websites:

> http://www.breakingtheviciouscycle.info

> and

> http://www.pecanbread.com

>

February 9, 2005