Welcome everyone to Practical Tips! We’re here to provide you with information, including therapeutic strategies and tips that can easily be used in your daily lives.  Our multi-disciplinary approach towards helping children allows us to look at them as a whole and provide a team approach to develop critical skills for daily living.

The ability to communicate and perform basic daily living skills are the foundation for successful participation in family, social, and academic activities. We recognize that families are an important part of their child's life and that sometimes life can get hectic. Each issue we will discuss a topic of interest and give you tips and strategies that you can use at home and in your daily lives to help support your child’s skill development.

In this issue, we will look at the many opportunities for communication and motor development during a very important time of the day….MEALTIME!

Chewing and Chattering

Dinner time can be a great chance to help your child develop his/her everyday language skills.  They are focused during a meal and are usually free from anxiety and willing to interact. 

For young children, choose a few words to focus on during the meal (some examples are below).  Pick one or two words each week and really concentrate on using them during meal time.  Children have to understand a word before they use it, so make sure you demonstrate what the word is and when it is used. Once they understand the words, then they can start to say them. Also, children learn from repetition; the more they hear you use the words, the quicker they will learn them.

Mealtime words for young learners:
 
Open        -  to request help opening containers, cereal boxes, or food wrappers.
More         -  to request more food or drink; can be used for each bite. 
All done    - to signal being done eating, before getting down from table.
Eat/Drink  -  at the beginning of the meal to indicate it’s time for dinner, during a meal to show what you are doing or what is wanted.

For adolescents,meal time is a great opportunity to build vocabulary and language skills. You can:

• Have your child name the foods and their colors.
• Practice naming ‘where’ items are (i.e. the peas are ‘on’ the plate, the milk is ‘in’ the cup, your feet are ‘under’ the table)
• Talk about how different foods taste/feel or how they are shaped (i.e. the potatoes are ‘fluffy’, the watermelon is ‘sweet’, the grapes are ‘round’, the milk is ‘cold’, the chicken is ‘hot’)
• Ask questions that require a choice (i.e. Do you want milk or juice?)
• Practice using pronouns (i.e. This is my fork, That is your spoon, That is his/her cup)

For older children, use mealtime to practice conversation skills and social language, as well as to build vocabulary skills.

• Go around the table and have everyone tell one thing they did during the day or what their favorite part of the day was.
• Ask your children how their day was and how they are feeling.

Motoring through Mealtime

Mealtime presents many opportunities for a variety of sensory and motor skills to be developed also!  A lot of kiddos with special needs struggle with “picky eating” or “problem feeding” and have a limited diet consisting of a few types of food they are comfortable consuming.  Although a common problem, it is also a complex one that requires a whole other article in order to properly discuss it.  Instead, let’s chat about the many opportunities to help build skills during meal preparation and actual mealtime.

Preparing the meal can be just as fun as actually eating the food!  A few ideas to get kids involved are:

• Help them make “menus” for the meal.  Younger kiddos can cut, color, paste pictures of selected food items, while older kiddos can copy and write words from the food containers to the menu.
• As long as it is safe…having kids help cook is a great way to work on following directions, sequencing and problem-solving.  Start with simple side dishes and when possible use visuals aides-draw a quick picture of all the ingredients in a dish and have your child cross it off once they use it.
• Setting the table is a natural time to work on planning and sequencing.  Counting place settings, gathering all utensils required and folding napkins are just a few activities your child can be in charge of.  If he/she is younger and/or struggles with sequencing make it routine for him/her to do the same “helper job” until it is mastered.
• Carrying food items to the table is a great time to work on balance, upper extremity control, and spatial concepts.  Give verbal directives on where to place the item (“put the peas on the right side of the bread”).  This is also a great opportunity to help teach your child safety and management…how much should he/she carry at once, are two hands needed, what is too heavy, what may be hot and needs pot-holders or should be avoided.
• A great problem-solving activity is to purposefully leave a few items off of the table and once every one is seated for the meal, see if your child can figure out what is missing (maybe a utensil needed to scoop the veggies with).

Mealtime and eating involves a lot of fine motor and oral-motor skills that are not easy for everyone to perform gracefully!  As your child learns and refines these skills, be supportive and patient.  Spills and messy faces are going to happen.  Show your child how to manage them in a loving manner.  Scooping, cutting, spreading and passing food items can be a challenge to kids with special needs.  A few things can make these challenges easier:

• SEATING!!!  Take a look at your child’s positioning in his/her chair.  Do they look supported and upright?  Are his/her feet on the floor?  Can they easily get arms above table to reach and manipulate utensils?  What happens at the hips happens at the lips!  If your child is sitting comfortably and supported well in his/her chair, he/she will have an easier time getting food to the mouth and even chewing/swallowing efficiently.  If properly positioned, your child’s feet should be flat on floor with hips/knees at 90 degrees.  Shoulders/arms should not have to reach too high or too far to get food items.  The chair should have a supportive back on it.  In order to achieve the “just right” fit use simple things like phone books, shoe boxes and rolled up towels for under feet, under the seat, and behind the back.
• Adapted dishes and utensils can make eating easier for those who have motor control difficulties.  A more affordable resource for these items is www.discountschoolsupport.com  #800-627-2829.  Even more affordable is adapting your own utensils by adding a little weight or size to them (wrap the handles in foam, duck tape and modeling clay).  Use dishes or Tupperware that have a raised edge so your child can scoop or stabilize food items against the side of the dish.

Keep in mind parents that sharing your thoughts and maybe your dessert at mealtime encourages your children to do the same… Just remember to have fun doing it!

Anna & Hope

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