Learning to eat..

Learning to eat by himself has not been an easy journey for Jon. He didn't know what to do with a spoon or how to pick up a piece of food and put it in his mouth. When he was 2 years old we started a program for him called 'The Portage Project'. A trained person came to assess him, then together we worked out a program for Jon. During the week Jon and I would work on a certain task and chart the results. Then at the end of the week the teacher would come back and we would decide whether Jon had learned this task well enough and was ready for the next one. Sometimes we stayed on one task for numerous weeks. Learning to eat was one of them. Jon did not know how to pick up food, take a bite or chew. These simple tasks that we take for granted were not simple for him. I would set up a mirror in front of him at the table so he could watch what was happening. Then I took a soda cracker and 'sort of forced it' between his teeth, all the time encouraging him to watch in the mirror, then with both of my hands I would move his mouth so that his teeth would meet and he could hear the cracker break. We did this over and over throughout the weeks until he learned how to do it. It was the same with chewing, here I would move his jaw around with my hand so he would feel and hear the cracker being chewed. Soda crackers dissolve quickly, that's why they were used for this task.

By looking at this photo no one would guess how long it took for Jon to learn to hold a spoon. At first I wrapped cloth around the spoon handle so that he could have a grip on it. Then with much encouragement I would guide, more like force his hand from the bowl to his mouth. There was constant resistance from him. Then slowly as he accomplished holding the spoon I would gradually move my hand to his wrist, then to his arm, elbow and finally when he got that, it would often just take a wave of our hand over the bowl for him to start eating. We used to say that we were 'blessing' his food. Many weeks were spent in doing these tasks. He was a picky eater and it was hard to introduce new foods.

This photo makes me smile, I think he is saying 'do I have to eat all this?" :)