Gabriel's Intervention
Gabriel required a communication system to use around food which allowed him a better way to have his say over what he was eating. As things stood, Gabriel could only communicate his thoughts on food through his behaviour – he either ate it or refused it. Therefore we introduced a Choice Board for foods to allow him to point to and select what he would like to eat. This meant Gabriel had the final say in what he ate at meal times but that his family could control his options.
We also set to work at increasing the variety of food in Gabriel’s diet during weekly sessions with his Project Worker. Due to the similar colour and texture of the foods Gabriel currently ate we felt there was some desensitisation work required in order to increase the variety of food in his diet. We did this through imitation work so that Gabriel could clearly see what he was expected to do. Initially, there was no expectation for Gabriel to eat anything. We worked on him touching, holding, licking and biting foods until he became comfortable enough to start trying them.
A “First And Then Board” helped at this stage to show Gabriel the expectation that he would eat a small quantity of the target food and would then get a reinforcing food (such as crisps). As Gabriel’s language was not at a level where he could negotiate, this was a method of presenting him with a fair deal. Through this, we were able to introduce many new foods and slowly build up the quantity he would eat of each one. When Gabriel was happy and relaxed enough to try different foods, he quickly discovered that many of them were really quite tasty.
Having established through work with the Project Worker the foods which Gabriel preferred his mum generalised them to meal times and started using them on the Choices Board.
