Sensory Taste Challenges: Practical Support for Early Years
Exploring the world through taste is a fundamental part of a child's sensory development. However, for some children, specific textures or flavours can trigger intense sensory challenges. Understanding these aversions is the first step toward creating a supportive dining environment. Consequently, practitioners must adapt their mealtime strategies to ensure every child feels safe while exploring new sensory inputs.
I am a Sensory Engagement and Inclusion specialist. In my work at The Sensory Projects, I look at how inexpensive resources can be used as sensory tools for inclusion and explore how understanding sensory processing can help us to better support those in our care. I deliver training nationally and internationally and can often be heard saying that I wish there was an easy way to distinguish between sensory and SENSORY. People are generally aware that engaging the senses when learning is useful, but there’s a big difference between putting out a boxload of toys that were all marked ‘sensory’ in the catalogue and creating a SENSORY banquet for exploration.
In this series of articles, I’m going to talk about the difference between sensory and SENSORY across different systems and about the impact of sensory engagement work on people of all neurotypes who experience ability and disability.
The Science of Sensory Aversions to Food
Taste is closely linked to our other sensory systems, particularly smell and touch. Specifically, a child might reject a food not because of its flavour, but because of its "mouthfeel." Furthermore, children with heightened sensory sensitivity may find certain tastes overwhelming or even painful. Because of this, we must approach mealtimes with empathy rather than pressure.
In my previous article (which you can view online), I talked about how to offer interesting and fun taste experiences and how these don’t always have to be about eating. In this article, we are going to be thinking about how we support someone who has struggles with eating. This is a huge topic and one I often explore with families and settings through my Sensory Struggles with Eating training day. I am sure you are all well versed in coaxing children to have a bite of the apple before the biscuit or to try just a little bit of the veg on their plate before moving on to the chips. This is not the sort of eating difficulties we are thinking about here. This is specifically sensory struggles.
First, it is important to recognise how lonely and frightening sensory struggles with eating can be, both for the child and their parents. For the parents, it is lonely as everyone around them will think they’re just not being firm enough. They’ll get advice like “they’ll eat when they’re hungry,” they won’t feel understood, and they won’t know how to help their child when all the standard advice doesn’t work.
For the child, it is even more extreme.
Strategies to Expand Sensory Horizons Safely
One effective way to manage sensory taste challenges is through "food play." This allows children to interact with food using their hands or nose before they are asked to taste it. For instance, painting with yogurt or sorting dry pasta can reduce the anxiety associated with new sensory stimuli. Additionally, using visual schedules can help an autistic child prepare for the transition to the lunch table.
If you are someone who struggles with a sensation, you generally keep whatever offers that sensation far away from you. You don’t move close to it, you don’t touch it, and you most certainly don’t PUT IT IN YOUR FACE! When you eat, you have to do this. You have to have taste in your face, you have to have smell in your face, touch in your face and sound, and you have to do these all at the same time. It’s a horrific assault! Ordinarily, if you are that child who struggles with the sensory world, you have someone on your side. They might not fully understand what is going on for you, especially if you haven’t learned to talk yet or are not a user of mouth words, but they will be the person who, when it is too bright in the supermarket, takes you out to the car. They’re the person who, when the family party gets too loud, sits with you in a different room to read a book. They are on your side. And in this situation, they are the person instigating the assault. Not only do you have to do all of those things at once, and IN YOUR FACE, but you also have to do them on your own without the possibility of rescue by the person who, in other situations, rescues you from sensory struggles.
All of the usual advice - removing pressure, being playful, etc. - extends here. But in the little bit of space before the end of the page, I want to offer you a couple of ideas you might not have thought of as clues and invite you to continue exploring:
Doing ALL of those different things at once is not necessary for accessing nutrition. Things can be blended to remove texture, and you can hold your nose as you eat to remove most of the flavour
To support eating, you do not have to be doing eating. You could be offering practice at the sensory skills associated with eating - exploring food textures with the fingers will, over time, make coping with food textures in your mouth easier. You can smell foods without eating them, and this can act as a stepping stone towards being willing to eat them. So often, the food conversation becomes binary: did you eat it, yes or no? By providing smaller steps - You touched it!”, “You smelt it!” - you offer a ladder towards the achievement of eating it
Inclusive Mealtimes and Sensory Regulation
Creating a calm environment is essential for children with sensory processing needs. High noise levels in a canteen can often exacerbate sensory taste issues, making it harder for a child to cope with food. Therefore, reducing background noise and using neutral-coloured plates can help the child focus on the task of eating.
In addition to environmental changes, staff training is vital. Understanding the "Double Empathy Problem" can change how we interpret a child's refusal to eat. Instead of seeing it as "picky eating," we see it as a legitimate sensory boundary. For those looking to specialise in this area, the Parenta Level 3 Childcare Diploma offers excellent modules on supporting individual needs.
When sensory struggles are the source of eating difficulties, having a particularly sensory offering can help. Whereas with a child who is not keen on trying new flavours - as most young children are growing up - you might naturally offer things a bit blander than the adults, mild, etc., when sensory struggles are the source, this might not be the best option. Foods that provide bold messages can sometimes (not always, but it is one of those things that is worth a try) be easier for people to cope with than vague sensory profiles. You’re looking for things that are really crunchy, or salty, or zingy - big, bold sensory messages. I write as an autistic adult who ate restrictively due to sensory differences when she was a child. My mum will tell you I lived off tomato ketchup sandwiches. My big leap into eating things like salads was pickled onions! I ate pickled onion crisps repeatedly and began to consider that if I liked them, I might like pickled onions, and from pickled onions, I went to onion, and from there to cucumber, tomato and lettuce. I don’t imagine anyone dealing with a child complaining about the broccoli on their plate has offered a pickled onion as an alternative! And this is my point: when the cause of the struggles is sensory, we need to think differently, not just hammer away at “tried and tested methods that worked for my children.” If their brains are different, you need to do something different
Monitoring Progress in Sensory Taste Development
Progress in overcoming sensory challenges is often slow and requires patience. However, small victories—like a child simply sitting at the table with a new food—should be celebrated. Because sensory development is a journey, we must provide consistent support. Ultimately, when we invest in a child's comfort, we invest in the future of the whole community.
I said at the start of the previous article that taste is a pretty weak sensory system - “it ain’t nothing without smell” - so in my next article, we are going to explore the weirdly emotional system that is smell! Join me for a fragrant romp through the possibilities of scent in your setting.
Read more from this series here:
- Sensory Engagement Through Touch: Crafting Unforgettable Experiences
- Sensory Development: Enhancing Engagement Through Touch
- Transform Tasting Into A Sensory Experience
About the author:
Joanna Grace is an international Sensory Engagement and Inclusion Specialist, trainer, author, TEDx speaker and founder of The Sensory Projects. Joanna draws on her own personal experiences to inform her writing surround neurodivergence, SEN, and inclusion in early years.
