ARFID and Autism Mealtime Support Toolkit for School, Home & Therapy
If lunchtime is the hardest part of the day for a student or your own child, this 17-page toolkit offers a respectful, pressure-free approach. It never turns eating into a battle or asks you to force a bite.
What's Inside
- Understanding ARFID: how it differs from typical picky eating, and how anxiety, sensory overload and past trauma show up at meals
- School lunch strategies: seating and environment, visual schedules, safe food policies, pressure-free language, peer education and responding to distress
- Home strategies: calmer mealtime routines, a gentle step-ladder approach to food exposure, scripts for the student and well-meaning relatives, and when to involve medical providers
- Planning tools: student food profile, school mealtime support plan template, sample IEP and 504 language (present levels, goals, accommodations), home-to-school communication log and glossary
How It Helps You
- Gives you exact phrases to use and to avoid
- Documentation templates save time on IEP language and substitute plans
- Clearly flags when symptoms need urgent medical attention
Ways to Use It
Use it to plan lunch supports at school, guide feeding sessions as an SLP or OT, or make dinner calmer at home. It is a companion to feeding therapy and medical care, not a substitute.
Who It's For
General and special education teachers, SLPs, OTs, school counselors and psychologists, and parents or caregivers.
Format
PDF (17 pages); read on screen or print the planning sheets. Instant download.
Need more than one?
If you find yourself reaching for in-depth guides like this one, the guides bundle collects the full library of longer special education references. The Special Education Guides Bundle includes this resource and more in one download, and you save 80% compared to buying each item separately.
