Introducing new foods.

We've come an extremely long way with my son Danny in the food department since he came into the care of me and my partner a few years ago.

When he first came to us he would only eat Vegemite sandwiches, plain hamburgers (a bread roll with a processed burger patty on it and a slice of heavily processed cheese), sausage rolls (with tomato sauce numbers written on them), chicken nuggets and chips. Today I asked him what he'd like for lunch and he said a sandwich. I asked him what sort of sandwich, expecting the usual Vegemite response, but instead he asked for a chicken, cheese and barbecue sauce sandwich which he happily demolished after taking a bite and announcing that it was delicious.

There are two factors that I believe have helped him to expand his diet to the point where he'll now eat almost anything that's put in front of him. First, Autism is not a static condition. Each individual has the ability to learn to do more things (and eat more things) over time, at their own pace. Given time, patience, the right environment and some positive incentives anything is possible.

Second, my partner Janet put in a hell of a lot of time and patience towards slowly introducing new foods into Danny's diet and getting him used to the idea that new foods are good. The incentive was to offer extra time on the computer after dinner if he tried the new food, and even more extra time if he actually ate it all after he'd had the initial taste test. We're now at the stage where he doesn't need the extra time initiative, he just eats his dinner happily and has his regular after dinner computer allowance. If he gets a new food he'll just ask if it's a new food, then taste test it and give us the verdict.

For the past year we've weaned him off the Vegemite sandwiches for school lunches and changed them into fresh chicken with tomato sauce, This was achieved after he had first gotten used to having freshly cooked chicken with some of his meals. He decided he liked it with a puddle of tomato sauce on his plate to dip his food in. So we tried it on some lightly buttered bread for his school lunches. Once he was happy with that we introduced a slice of real cheese into the mix (not that plastic processed crap), and last week I boldly switched the tomato sauce for mild, American style mustard sauce, which was purely by accident (I grabbed the wrong bottle from the fridge, then after his sandwich was made decided that he could try it as another new food). He loved it so much he actually asked for barbecue sauce for his next sandwich to see if he'd like that too, which is what he had today. Danny also has cooking as a part of his high-school curriculum and is happily trying new foods there as well.

It's nice to be able to sit Danny down at the dinner table with the rest of the family and actually give him the same meal as everyone else now. Gone are the days where he'd have a separately prepared meal placed in front of him because that's all he would eat. He now eats a variety of foods including chicken, pork, lamb, beef, peas, carrots, broccoli, potato, cauliflower and corn. We do have to cut some of his food before it's placed in front of him, such as steak because he finds it hard to cut, or baked potato so the heat can be let out a bit before he puts it in his mouth, but he is starting to get used to cutting his own food now. If we give him sausages we let him cut them himself as they're reasonably easy to get a knife through. We've begun to cut some of his other meats into larger chunks now so we can tell him to cut things into smaller pieces before he eats them. We're hoping to eventually leave meats on the bones for him. For the moment he has trouble with meat on the bone, but we're confident he'll eventually have his chops on the plate looking like the chops on everyone else's plates.

For those of you who are still struggling to get your children to eat a healthy and nutritiously balanced diet, which is very common for children on the Autism spectrum, I sympathise with you. We've been there. There is hope over time though if you persist. It's very easy to give in and just serve the same three foods over and over, but it's well worth the effort of trying to introduce a small amount of something new at first, just on the side, with a small reward to help encourage the new eating behaviour. Eventually it will become an accepted routine to have something new on the side, which can then become something that's a regular part of the meal as the child becomes accustomed to it. We did make it a reward system and not a penalty system though. Danny didn't lose computer time if he didn't eat something new, he was just made aware that he wasn't going to get the extra time if he didn't eat it. It all had to be positive for him, and now he sees new foods as a positive thing instead of a dreadful challenge.