A Feeding Therapy Tool
- AnAutismHomeschoolingMomof3
- Jan 10, 2021
- 3 min read
Updated: Feb 11, 2021
My oldest has been in feeding therapy with Speech and OT Therapists since he was 3 years old. I remember how enormous a milestone it was when the amount of foods he would eat no longer could be counted on one hand, and now he will eat anything grown on our Tower Garden. His younger sister has been in Feeding Therapy for 3 years, and his youngest sister 2 years.
I feel like having our tower in our home set off a food exploring grenade. If your kiddos are in Feeding Therapy you know they must first "LOOK" at a new food they are exploring. My kids get to explore seed packets we have in home, we discover and learn about what they are by looking them up on the internet or researching them in books. We learn what type of plant, how long it takes to germinate, how many to plant at once, the type of weather they flourish in, where they originate from, what they look like when they produce seeds, etc. Lastly we research different ways of eating them. This is always fun and curious to my kids so its easy to take this "new" scary food as a positive adventure.
Our Feeding Therapist loves having this Tool in our dinning room too! She suggests they pick things to add to dishes in their weekly sessions.
Then we "TOUCH". They are handling seeds, carefully inserting into rock wool growing pods, watering, placing into the Tower Garden 1-2 weeks later, pruning, and finally harvesting. In a Feeding Therapy Session my kids have 50 minutes to get through the entire Feeding Hierarchy. When they are growing plants in this Aeroponic Garden, they are constantly exposed to these new foods over the course of time, and they are interacting. Participating in the harvesting easily leads to helping prepare them, and instead of being intimidated or cautious, they've been curious and excited.
"SMELL" comes 3rd, but they are touching and smelling the plants as they grow. Our home smells like plants, and when you find yourself indoors doing school work, learning from tutors, or doing therapies, being able to smell nature in home is soothing, relaxing, and healthy. We've learned that our plant friends produce oxygen in our home for us to make it healthy for us to breathe, while we exhale Carbon monoxide to help them grow. The fact that the pump runs all throughout the day releasing moisture into our air keeps us from getting too dried out from having the AC or Heat on too.
"KISS", "LICK", and "BITE" come next and last on the Feeding Therapy Chart and all go pretty quick for my kids once harvesting happens. They like to smell the plants while they are growing and even give little kisses now to help them grow faster.
The coolest part is that the plants continue to grow and grow. So if they decide to pull some celery or lettuce off to try it and don't feel comfortable with it, it's constantly regrowing so they can keep coming back again. My kids are always helping make decisions on what to grow, and we can change the plants out anytime we want. They love learning about plants, love knowing they have the power and confidence to grow them, and have been gaining life skills at the same time helping me prepare them.
In the end the most powerful part of all - is that nutrition is so important. Many children with Autism do not have healthy diets. Sensory issues caused constraints in my child's ability to consume foods outside of a select few, and I was always left feeling hopeless. How could I possibility feed my kid veggies when a melt down would happen over the Chicken Nugget brand he ate changing their breading?
Having my kiddos around these growing veggies daily and having the care of our Tower Garden be a part of the schedule has expanded diets in this house by the heaps.
We find lots of helpful charts for feeding therapy here:
You can read about nutrition here:
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