Food Box Grid

I have gotten several questions regarding (for lack of a better word) the food box grid that we have been using with great success for Liam's food sensitivities.  (October 11th blog post)  It is such a simple thing, yet it would have never occured to me to do this on mine own if the OT hadn't shown it to me.  He doesn't have severe eating issues in regards to textures, but it did get to the point where he was gagging and throwing up at almost every dinner with his meat and other soft textures, so we are giving it a try.  This might not work for a lot of people, but I thought it was worth sharing as an option to try.

I take a piece of construction paper and draw 8 boxes (four on each side) then start at the bottom squares with non-preferred food.  In this picture, it's chicken.  Then a preferred food- peppers.  Yes, my three year old gags on pizza, chicken nuggets and grilled cheese, but loves peppers :)  I always make sure the food is in small bite size pieces, which he doesn better with.  We start at the bottom with the first column.  If he eats a piece of chicken, he gets a pepper.  We repeat and refill the squares until he no longer wants to do it.  He is pretty good about not trying to go right for the pepper, but we definitely have to sit with him to make sure this doesn't happen.  Dinner takes a lot longer this way, but he is eating it.   I think part of it is the fact that it is not a large quantity of chicken at one time like it would be on a plate.  Maybe that visual is too overwhelming to him.  This way he only gets four small bites of a non-preferred food at a time.  My plan is to laminate a few charts, so I don't have to keep creating new ones each night.  I'd love to hear if it helps your child.  Send me a message through the "Contact Me" box and let me know!