From learning to communicate and exploring ways to interact with new foods, Picky Eaters Online can offer a unique approach to help your child with various needs

It is common for children with speech and language delays to also be picky eaters. Children can have oral motor and/or sensory difficulties that impact not only their feeding and swallowing skills, but also their articulation and ability to communicate effectively. That can make eating even more challenging! Some children, to help with this concern, may have a communication device to express themselves. 

Mealtimes can be a great time to incorporate language opportunities, increase social interactions, and build positive experiences around food! One common approach is to use the “Descriptive Teaching Model”. 

So What is the Descriptive Teaching Model and How Can I Use It With My Child? 

The Descriptive Teaching Model is a well-known and widely recommended model for language acquisition. 

For those with a communication device, programming every single vocabulary word into the user’s Augmentative communication device would be quite difficult (for you and for the user to learn). Thus, the Descriptive Teaching Model focuses on using vocabulary already programmed into the device and focuses on describing concepts. 

A Descriptive Teaching Model can be effective in expanding vocabulary, and in describing what we know about items. It can be especially helpful when we just cannot think of the word we want to say (that happens to the best of us!). Examples might include, “squishy, soft, peel, yellow fruit”, “eat, sweet, cold, cone”. 

Here are some great examples that you can try during mealtimes:

1) the communication partner describes food/ingredients needed for a baking activity (narrating through the activity in real-time as it is happening)

 2) using phrases like “tell me about your banana”. This opens an opportunity to teach and expand language with provided answers. Mealtimes can be a great time to foster social interactions and language opportunities for picky eaters! 

Other recommendations: 

• Snacks can be a great time to offer choices of familiar foods (e.g. great for requesting!) with a less familiar food 
• Model descriptive talking during mealtimes by discussing attributes, such as how the food looks, feels, tastes, sounds, and smells 
• Baking and meal prep is a great way to not only expose children to food and decrease the pressure to try foods, but also use the time to model and support vocabulary
• Grocery shopping is another great way to involve picky eaters and those with delayed language acquisition to improve vocabulary, social interactions, exposure to food, etc.