Welcome back to Part 2 in Guest blogger Amy Stout’s series about a unique autism therapy she created for her daughter. Today’s post explains how she created a very pink, very creative, and very successful feeding therapy session.

The Pinkalicious (Feeding) Party, Part 2

On the day of the party, Kylie wore her best pink dress. She also brought her Pinkalicious book and her washable Pinkalicious doll. We even invited Daddy to take time off work to come with us to the party. When he arrived, he brought pink roses for “Kylie-licious.”

We took a quick picture of Kylie with Pinkalicious, her Pinkalicious book and Miss Jenny. Then the party began!

Autism Therapy the Pinkalicious Way

There is a mirror on the wall, and they looked at themselves eating green peppers. Yes, I just said green peppers! They followed along in the Pinkalicious book…

And she liked it!!

Next, they tried watermelon. Watermelon was super cool because it had both pink and green on it. She was a little unsure about the texture, but she did it!

They tried strawberries and strawberry ice cream, but the next food was the one Kylie had been waiting for. We are getting ready to try pink cupcakes! Keep in mind, that Kylie wouldn’t even go near cake or frosting before.

Even though they looked yummy, she still was afraid to actually touch them. So, she used her tongue instead. This is a coping technique.

Then, Jenny showed her that you can TOUCH the cupcake. (I love the look of awe on her face) Kylie decided to try it too. Touching was too much, so she used her green pepper to dip it into the frosting!

Kylie then looked into the mirror and discovered that her tongue had a pink hue. So she declared that she was turning pink and needed to eat some green food. It was her idea!

Can we say progress?

Pinkalicious Autism Therapy a Success

They ended the party with drinking pink lemonade from a silly straw.  Kylie loves silly straws.

It was such a successful therapy day. And, yes, I know that mommy isn’t featured in any of these photos, but you did experience our world through my eyes!

More Autism Therapy and Feeding Issue Books

There are many other books that you could use for an event such as this to assist with feeding issues.  Here are a few that we enjoy!

• The Very Hungry Caterpillar
• One Watermelon Seed
• The Seven Silly Eaters
• Pancakes! Pancakes!
• How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World
• Thomas Jefferson’s Feast
• Pinkalicious

These books are very helpful for understanding feeding issues:

• Food Chaining
• Just Take a Bite

Other Autism Therapy Resources

My daughter chews on these all the time when she becomes overwhelmed, anxious or just needs deep joint pressure. They are amazing and keep her from chewing on non-edible objects and clothing. There are many scents and styles available…

• Ark Therapeutic Chewy Tube Grabbers
• Ark Therapeutic Textured Chewy Tube Grabber
• Y Chew
• Z-Vibe Oral Motor Tool–vibrates
• Elephant Jiggler–We use this all the time. His ear can double as a spoon!

And finally, an encouraging book for parents, Chicken Soup for the Soul: Raising Kids on the Spectrum

Your Suggestions about Autism Therapy

Now that you’ve read about Amy’s creative autism therapy idea, it’s time to share yours…anything you’ve come up with that made a different for your child with special needs. 

Autism Therapy the Pinkalicious Way, Part 1

Do you like what you see at DifferentDream.com? You can receive more great content by subscribing to the quarterly Different Dream newsletter and signing up for the daily RSS feed delivered to your email inbox. You can sign up for the first in the pop up box and the second at the bottom of this page.

Guest blogger Amy Stout is here today and tomorrow to share one of her family’s recent adventures with Kylie, their daughter who experiences autism. She’s here with the story of a very pink, very creative, and very successful adventure in autism therapy. Today, she explains why and how the party came to be. Tomorrow, she’ll be back with a report on how it went.

The Pinkalicious (Feeding) Party, Part 1

Kylie is now eight years old and experiences autism. One of the things that goes along with that diagnoses for Kylie is significant sensory issues which also create feeding issues. Feeding issues can be sensory, psychological, emotional, or physical.

And, let me share a personal note here…feeding issues are hard! They are a continuous, multiple times a day battle. On most days, Kylie has to be hand fed because she doesn’t want to touch food. She has an extremely limited diet, usually only 5–7 select foods that she will eat. If she adds a food, she will usually reject a former favorite. It takes months, even years for her to feel comfortable enough to be able to sit at the table with an unfamiliar food, smell, or texture. Often she will crawl under the table and shout “It’s fake! It’s fake!” or she will go to another floor of the house to escape the foreign item.

Autism Therapy and Feeding Issues

This is one area that is quite frustrating for parents and caregivers as:

1. We eat 3x a day and usually more.
2. The medical community doesn’t address this issue unless a child looks significantly malnourished. With autism, children tend to look very healthy but only because the foods they tolerate are unhealthy and cause them to gain weight. This can be just as serious as undernourishment since kids need certain vitamins, minerals, and nutrients for proper brain development.

Feeding is also difficult because so much of our every day world revolves around food. Holidays and other things too are all about food–birthday parties, classroom parties, summer fun, restaurants, family outings, state fairs, movie theaters, picnics, theme parks, and Vacation Bible School. Take food out of the equation, and things become quite difficult. Just imagine Thanksgiving day with a child who wants nothing to do with the typical Thanksgiving Day feast!

While the medical community does not offer parents much hope, the therapy community does. But often the techniques go directly against everything you ever learned about etiquette, manners, and healthy eating. For example, to boost my daughter’s metabolism and help her start to feel hunger, we often give her a snack size candy bar before a meal. This is a huge no-no for a typical child, but it works for our unique child. Also, we encourage her to touch her food, blow bubbles through her straw into a drink, chew on ice, play with her food–ever try painting with colored pudding?–and many other typical taboos that usually encompass the label of good manners. Now, imagine training a child care provider or grandparent on these techniques. Imagine the stares of shock from the parents sitting in the next booth to you in a restaurant. It can be quite difficult and you must develop thick skin to accommodate all the opinions out there!

Pinkalicious Autism Therapy

We are fortunate that Kylie has an unusual attachment to books. During the time of this story, she had just been introduced to the book Pinkalicious by Victoria Kann.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the story, it’s about a little girl who LOVES pink. One day, it is raining so her mom suggests they make cupcakes. Pinkalicious thinks pink cupcakes with pink frosting would be divine! As they are working, she eats a couple of cupcakes. When her picky eater brother turns down his cupcake, she eats it for him. After dinner, her parents allow her to eat another cupcake but Pinkalicious still wants more. The next morning, Pinkalicious wakes up to find that her skin has turned pink!

Pinkalicious is thrilled that she looks so beautiful and tells everyone her new name is Pinkerbelle. After a bath does not wash off the pink, her mom takes her to the doctor where the she is diagnosed with Pinkititis. Pinkalicious is unfazed. The doctor then tells her that for the next week, she can eat NO PINK FOOD and, to return to normal, she must eat a steady diet of green food. That night, Pinkalicious pretends to eat her green food, but when everyone is asleep, she sneaks into the kitchen and eats another pink cupcake. The next morning, she has turned RED! Pinkalicious is horrified! Red is most certainly NOT PINK!  She wants to be herself again so she begins to eat green foods. Before long, she’s back to her wonderful self.

For some reason, Kylie really connected to this book.  She took it with her everywhere and started to declare that pink was her favorite color. As parents, we loved it as it has wonderful illustrations of food, especially green foods. So, I talked to Kylie’s feeding therapist and asked her if she would consider doing something “out of the box” and make our next feeding session a Pinkalicious Party. Kylie really dislikes feeding therapy and asks us hopefully every week if her therapist is out sick. So we would build it up so Kylie would have a level of excitement about the session.  Kylie’s therapist, Jenny, agreed to the idea and we set to making plans.

Pinkalicious Will Be Back

Amy, Kylie, and Pinkalicious will be back with their report about the Pinkalicious (Feeding) Party. Until then, enjoy this preview of Kylie all dressed up and ready to go.

Autism Therapy the Pinkalicious Way, Part 2

Do you like what you see at DifferentDream.com? You can receive more great content by subscribing to the quarterly Different Dream newsletter and signing up for the daily RSS feed delivered to your email inbox. You can sign up for the first in the pop up box and the second at the bottom of this page.