Autism & The Holidays: How to Navigate Picky Eating and Other Challenges During Holiday Gatherings

With the holiday season approaching, your clients may be planning to attend celebratory dinners with family and friends. Thanksgiving, a holiday defined by food, can be challenging for picky eaters and extra challenging for picky eaters on the autism spectrum.  While most of us look forward to these meals, they can present challenges to your clients with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) due to the disruption of routine, presentation of unfamiliar foods, and the overstimulation that can sometimes occur. Those diagnosed with ASD may have difficulty adapting to new stimuli and breaking previously established preferences and patterns of behavior. In this training, we will review important considerations for holidays, specifically. The combination of a deviation from routine and a day filled with unusual foods, smells, and people can easily add stress to what is meant to be a festive, special day. We will navigate feeding issues from a behavioral perspective, going from assessment to treatment and reviewing evidence based interventions.

1 BACB LRN available