88. Making Mealtimes Easier for Sensory-Sensitive Kids: Insights from Emily, The Simple OT
This week on The Nourishing Autism Podcast, Brittyn sits down with pediatric occupational therapist (OT) and content creator Emily, that also goes by The Simple OT, a third-generation OT who brings a strong sensory-informed lens to everything she does. Emily is trained in The SOS Approach to Feeding and has worked across early intervention, school, and outpatient settings, and she brings years of hands-on experience helping autistic children and kids with sensory processing differences feel safe and successful at mealtimes and beyond.
Together, Brittyn and Emily break down why regulation is the foundation of feeding, the early signs of dysregulation parents often miss, and simple ways to support a child’s nervous system before and during meals. They also talk about the pressure parents may feel around eating, how our own regulation influences our kids, and why food can be overwhelming long before it touches a child’s lips.
Emily also shares some fun, sensory-friendly food-play ideas, like the hilarious "Sneeze Game".
You don't want to miss this episode full of strategies you can use tonight to help mealtimes feel manageable and more connected!
Find Emily (The Simple OT) on:
Instagram: @thesimpleot
TikTok: @thesimpleot
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TRANSCRIPT
Hi, I'm Brittyn, a Registered Dietitian and autism sibling. I have a passion for helping parents of neurodivergent kids navigate nutrition and wellness for their child, one small step at a time. Here we'll explore practical nutrition tips, learn from top autism experts, break down the newest research, and share inspirational stories that will empower you to utilize nutrition to help your child feel their best and thrive.
Listen in while picking kids up from school, sitting in a therapy waiting room, taking a quick walk or wherever you find yourself, looking for some inspiration and a friend to guide you along this journey. This is Nourishing Autism.
Brittyn: Hi everyone. Welcome back to the Nourishing Autism Podcast. Today I am joined by someone whose work I've admired for a long time, pediatric occupational therapist, mom, content creator, and proud third generation OT, Emily from The Simple OT. Emily has spent years supporting kids on the autism spectrum and kids with sensory processing differences across early intervention, public schools, and now outpatient care.
She's developed countywide feeding safety protocols, helped design and train staff in sensory rooms, and holds a certification in the SOS Approach to Feeding. She's truly someone who lives and breathes sensory informed care and blends it beautifully with motherhood.
In our conversation, we dive into some of the topics that both of us hear from parents every single day. Why regulation is the foundation of feeding, how to recognize the early signs of dysregulation at the table, practical ways to support a child's nervous system before and during meals, and how food play can transform pressure-filled mealtimes into safe, meaningful moments of exploration.
We also talk about some of the realities of parenting, how our own regulation impacts our kids, the power of co-regulation and the very real sensory overwhelm that can happen long before a new food even reaches a child's mouth. And of course Emily shares some incredibly fun, creative food play ideas that parents can try tonight.
Yes, including the Sneeze Game, which I absolutely did with my son that night and he loved it. So I'm excited for you to try that one. This episode is such a rich blend of OT and nutrition perspective, and I know you're gonna walk away with concrete strategies, a better understanding of your child's sensory world, and a few ideas that I'm hopeful are going to be a helpful tool at the dinner table.
Let's dive in.
Brittyn: Hey everyone. Welcome back to the Nourishing Autism Podcast. I'm so excited because this week we have our first guest on season three of the podcast, and that is Emily, the Simple OT. Hi Emily. Hi. Thanks so much for being here. We've connected on social media for a while now, and this is the first time that we are meeting, in real life.
I'm so excited. Yeah, I feel like we share so many of the same ideas, although we're in different fields, you being an OT and me being a dietitian, but we overlap so much and that's why I'm so excited to have this conversation with you and talk about feeding and your side of feeding and how that integrates also into, what I do as a dietitian.
So thank you so much for being here. So as we get started, I want you to share who you are, what you do, and who you help.
Emily: Yeah, so I am a pediatric occupational therapist. I'm a mom and I'm a content creator. I am known as @thesimpleOT on TikTok and Instagram. I currently work in the pediatric realm.
I've had experience with early intervention, public school, special education, and outpatient facilities. I help out children who struggle with regulation, sensory processing, and participate in daily activities.
Brittyn: Amazing. And how long have you been an OT?
Emily: Oh, I think it's six years. And a fun fact, I am a third generation, so my grandfather was an OT and my mom is an OT.
Brittyn: No way. Wait, I love that. I've actually, I don't know that I know anyone else who has like a family line of OTs, so that's really amazing. So how long have you been a content creator? Did you start up social media whenever you started your practice, or how did that work for you?
Emily: I started when I was on maternity leave with my first son, and I was very bored because I was used to the hustle bustle of the workplace, and so being home was very not my norm, and it was a little bit lonely without, most times no newborns are just sleeping for the majority of the time. So I was doing a lot of therapy activities of things that I would do with my client in the homes or at the clinic, and I was applying it to my child. And at the time, I think I started right before COVID hit. Not a lot of people or lots of people were on TikTok and I wasn't seeing very many OTs, so I just thought of recording videos of activities I was doing with my son and posting them, and it was received really well.
Brittyn: That's amazing. I love that.
Emily: Yeah.
Brittyn: Social media, we both know that it can be so hard, but it can also be so rewarding. And so I'm always curious, like for healthcare providers, we didn't go to school for social media or for marketing or to be entrepreneurs and so I always just love hearing the story behind other content creators too.
So in your content, I see you talking a lot about the importance of nervous system regulation and how that often comes before participation and different skills, and I want you to explain what that means, especially when it comes to mealtime.
Emily: Yeah. So regulation I think is the foundation of everything that we do.
A child's ability to participate in everyday activities depends first on whether they feel that safety, organization, and connection. If they don't feel that, then they're gonna be in a state of dysregulation. And regulation, we often confuse, or a lot of people out there confuse it with being in a state of calm.
Regulation is about the state of your brain and body matching the task at hand. So yeah, sometimes we wanna be calm, but that doesn't always, that's not always appropriate. I can use an example. So if I was going on a soccer field to play a game, I step onto the field and, adrenaline's pumping through my body, and I'm getting ready to play my rival team, right?
I am focused, I'm alert, and I probably have a lot of energy ready to just go. That's an appropriate regulation state matching that task. I'm participating in a soccer game. If I were to take that state and apply it to bedtime and I have adrenaline pumping through my body, I am wired, I am very energetic.
That would be a state of dysregulation, right? So for bedtime, you do wanna be calm, you wanna be a little tired, drowsy, your body feels a little bit heavy, slower moving. So regulation is just all about being in a state that matches the task at hand. Especially for mealtime, that's so important because we want our kids to be in a regulated state.
When their brain feels safe, they're more willing to participate in new activities, explore, play, and eat. So regulation is so important.
Brittyn: I've never heard somebody explain it quite the way that you did. And I really love that because you're right. Regulation doesn't just have to mean calmness. It's like matching the experience that they're having at the time.
And so same thing, it's like you don't wanna be coming into mealtime being hyped up, we want our nervous systems to be in that rest and digest state versus the flight or fight because when we're in flight or fight, or we're in that state of like arousal too, we have blood moving away from our digestive organs.
And so coming into a mealtime, you want all of the focus and your digestion and the blood to be like funneling toward powering those organs or else we start to see also issues with digestion or also just kids not in the state to digest their food very well. And so from a biochemical standpoint, like what you're saying, absolutely makes sense.
Emily: As a parent, when sometimes my kids are just off the walls, it's been a really stressful day, work and then taking care of them, it's really hard to participate in eating for myself. I often forget about it if I'm in a high stress state all day.
And then forcing yourself to eat is really not that fun. So exactly to what you're saying. Yeah.
Brittyn: Yeah, I experienced that too. I didn't with my first, but now that I have two kids, I noticed that like I am so hyped up that then at the end of the day finally when I'm winding down, I'm like starving. And it's because my nervous system finally came down from that heightened state.
So I think that's a great point. Forcing our kids to eat in a heightened state isn't going to be successful as well. What are some of the signs that a child may be showing that they're dysregulated, that parents can be looking out for?
Emily: There's so many.
So if a child can't sit still or is constantly leaving the table, slumps or leans or looks really tired or floppy, if they avoid sitting upright, if they're seeking pressure, so if they're pushing up against you or the table or kicking, those are all signs that the vestibular system and proprioceptive system is dysregulated. For kids who are experiencing sensory overload, some of those signs might be covering ears, complaints about the noises, squints, avoids looking at the food, turns away, complaints about the smell, even sometimes gags, pushes the plate away like pushes the plate away from them or wants a different type of food.
For emotional cues, again, if the nervous system is in that survival mode, just like what you were talking about and they are not ready to eat, a lot of times I'll see kids in this state go into a meltdown really quickly. So if you're like, hey, Jimmy, we're gonna go to the table and eat our food, and then it's immediate meltdown. Gets irritable, tearful when asked to come to the table, refuses foods that they normally like, they're gonna avoid that. They appear anxious, worried, or even sometimes overly silly.
Avoid sitting near certain people or siblings. This just actually happened to my son last night. He's really sick and he was like, I don't wanna sit near his brother or my mom. I wanna sit near dad, who's a safe person. And I was like, oh no, this is gonna be a long mealtime. And it was. But those are all signs that a child might be showing that their nervous system is not ready and they might be in that fight flight or freeze state and they're not ready to come to the table and eat.
Brittyn: So what can parents do if they notice these signs of their child, like coming into mealtime or once mealtime has already started, what can they do to bring them back into a state of regulation or support them through that?
Emily: Yeah it's so hard because our sensory preferences are so individualized and specific to our own bodies. And it's different per person. So what regulates me might not regulate somebody else. So it's hard to give specifics, but I'll list off some generalized ones. First I encourage parents to pause and observe what their child is doing, asking what is my child telling me right now through these actions that they're showing me?
Because it's all communication. You can also start with co-regulation in that moment. So using warm tones, maybe decreasing the questions that you're asking them. If they're okay with proximity, getting low and close to them. Validating emotions is a big one too. That's important. Possibly offering a choice.
Do you want this? Maybe you don't want this mushy banana. Can we do like banana chips instead? So offering choices is a great one.
Supporting their sensory system is another really key component and strategy that you can use. I'm such a huge fan of heavy work, which is pushing, pulling, or lifting with our body. When we engage in these movements that are resistive, it actually sends sensory input to our brain telling it to regulate.
So that is a good strategy you could use before coming to the table. Or if you see them in that moment, they get 10 minutes into the meal and they start showing you signs of dysregulation, it's okay to stop the meal, go over, do some heavy work, and come back. We're ending the mealtime with that too.
It's really whatever that child needs in that moment. Another one is reducing sensory stimuli in that environment. Some kids are really sensitive to visual clutter or noises. Again, the question one. I'm a proponent of this one during my own mealtime with my kids, I'm like, what did you do today?
What? Who did you talk to? What did you do at school? I'm asking all these questions, but at the end of the day, they are so exhausted. They are dysregulated, they're in a tired state. They don't wanna answer my questions, not because they don't love me or whatever, but they're putting all of their energy into the food and eating that they have.
Brittyn: That's such a good point.
Food in itself too. It's so overstimulating for kids, especially for kids with autism or ARFID or Sensory Processing Disorder. Eating is such a sensory rich experience that you have, like the texture of the food, the smell, what it looks like, all these things happening at once, and if there's a way to hit that sensory threshold that a child has, eating is a great way to do that. To easily put you into overstimulation. And so you're so right, thinking of their sensory bucket right now and what's happening, and then asking questions, putting demands like having, I didn't even think about the visual clutter. That's not something that I've even thought about before.
But it's true for me too. That I think that's such an important way to view it.
Emily: Even their plates. I have a lot of clients who sometimes having even two to three foods on a plate is too much visually for them. Reducing that and letting one be on the plate, one food at a time, and that's okay. It takes a long time, I think, for parents and practitioners to learn a child's sensory preferences.
And sometimes it can be frustrating, confusing, but just keep going with it because the knowledge that you get is so important for everything. For eating, for sleeping, for getting dressed in the morning.
Brittyn: These are such tangible, like really realistic things that you can recognize and that you can do. And one thing that I was thinking too is yes, their plate can be so overstimulating and a lot of times with selective eaters, parents are like I wanna provide them as many options as possible so that they can make all these choices and sometimes too many choices can be overstimulating as well.
Or at least having all of those things on their plate at once. And so sometimes it's like shifting our perspective on eating, because also a lot of people like to have, you know, lots of different options on their plate and foods are touching and I often teach parents starting from a place of simplicity.
I usually coach families through having only three foods on their plate at a time. Sometimes four. And if you notice that your child is doing well with that, absolutely add more. But with those three foods on the plate, I always want at least two of those to be preferred foods and having them in larger amounts.
If you're gonna introduce a new food, start really small, because just like seeing a food that's new and can be anxiety provoking can definitely be something that heightens anxiety and puts you into that flight or fight. So I just love all of the things that you're mentioning.
And if you have any resources too that, any of your posts, we can also link some of those in the show notes. Oh, okay. Or if you don't have a post like this, would love to collaborate with you on one and write out all of the dysregulation signs as well as ways that we support kids.
Love that. So maybe we should talk about doing that. With food at the table, I think a lot of parents, I mean, mealtime can just be so black and white. Like we sit down, we ask them if they can try a bite and that doesn't go well. And then mealtime just falls apart. I know that you're a huge supporter of food play and so am I, and I think that can be a really great way to help mealtime feel so much less, like clinical or like feeding therapy.
Can you talk a little bit about food play and why that's important for helping food feel safe to them?
Emily: Yeah. Food play is magical and it is so much fun and all rules fly out the window, right? You have to be goofy with it. You have to really dive into it. And it is so important for kids who, have a lot of these sensitivities when they're eating and they're in that fight or flight because it lets the child explore with the food without pressure.
It teaches the brain that the food is safe and not a threat. It helps them create, I say, safe sensory memories. I love like neuro and memories and building on that positive association and food play builds those positive associations and those associations shape future behavior.
So it's really important to incorporate that during therapies and in the home.
Brittyn: I agree. And it does shift the focus from actually eating the food, which I find, often, even though that's not always the goal to get the child to eat the food because a lot of kids aren't ready to do that yet. Yeah.
But it shifts that focus away. Exactly. To reduce the pressure around mealtime, to bring down the anxiety around new food, the expectation that they have to eat it. And I just find that it helps kids feel so much more, yeah, regulated around the food too. And my son, he's not on the spectrum, but he's three years old and he right now we're actually in a place where he's open to growing his food list.
For a while we had really gotten down to some specific items that he really liked which we know is very typical of a 2 to 3-year-old to also go through that developmental stage of some selective eating. But we have been working a lot on food play recently, because it also has been helping him drop the expectations that I have for him to try the foods, because sometimes as a parent, I really want him to eat the food, and he can also feel that. And so I've had to readjust my mindset around his eating, where sometimes I'm like, I know that you can do this and I know that you like this food, but instead backing it up and taking some steps back to like meet him where he's at so that we can come back to a place that feels safe for him and then follow his lead on where he's going to go.
And it's hard to do that as a parent, especially when you're at the end of the day, feeling dysregulated yourself. And maybe it's a food that you know your child likes or they would like it if they just tried a bite. And so I feel like our stress and anxiety can come through in mealtimes too and kids feel our expectations. And so I think regulation as a parent is important, but I think food play can also bring us down as parents. Yeah, it can get a little silly and like take a breath. I think that that can be really important for parents too, and gives an opportunity for some connection, which it usually is deeply needed at the end of the day.
Emily: I did a post that was a little spicy, but it was because I get a lot of parents that are asking me, "Hey, can you help my kid eat broccoli or their veggies?" And I'm like, okay, you eat it first. Like you do it in this session. And they're like, "oh no, I don't eat that."
And I'm like, huh. So it's definitely interesting and I think kids pick up on all of that stuff, our parent sensory preferences. My husband, when he's eating, he will constantly wipe his hands on a napkin. He has to have a napkin right next to him, and if he gets messy, that tactile input, he needs that to regulate.
And so I know my kids, some of them are picking it up and I just think it's cute. There's nothing wrong with that at all, but it's funny because we need to realize that what we do often is like a mirror, and our kids are so observant, they're so smart. I think there's so much power in incorporating parents into these strategies as a practitioner, that's where the magic happens. Yeah, my clients really like me. Some might consider me a friend. The occupational therapist. But when their mom or dad jumps into those therapy sessions and is getting messy with it, is building that fruit car next to their child. Oh my gosh. That is a moment that no therapist can tap into.
It really is so magical when the parents jump in.
Brittyn: Do you have any activities, like favorite activities around food that you encourage parents to try?
Emily: Yes. Oh my gosh, I have so many. I don't have a name for this one, but i'll just call it "The Sneeze" and I'll put food on my head.
Again, you have to jump right into this. You can't be fearful. You have to go right in because the kids sense the fear, but I'll put the food on my head and then I just do an exaggerated "uh choo" and I blow it off my head onto the table, in my hands, or if I wanna add another element, I'll get like a big metal bowl and it'll fall into the bowl and make a noise. And I haven't met a child that does not laugh at that.
Brittyn: My son would eat that up. I've never done that with food. I do it with his toys and he thinks it's so funny. I wrote it down. I'm definitely doing that with him.
It's so cute. Yay.
Emily: You know, I was trained in the SOS approach to feeding. And so they talk a lot about, there's like a whole systematic way of interacting with the food. You don't just wanna go from the hand to the mouth. That's intense. But for that one, it's really interesting to me because they have to put it on their head.
And so that's really cool when a kid imitates that because a lot of times they're totally fine with that. And sometimes then I can move it from my forehead down to my nose and then my mouth. So that's a really fun one to grade. Another one is I like the squish test, so I'll have a food and I'm like, does it squish?
Does it snap? Does it roll? That's another strategy. Keeping it in front of you. Just that hand level. Again, you don't wanna just jump straight into the mouth. Don't ever wanna force a kid to put something up to their mouth if they're not comfortable with it. And a lot of times I like that one too because if a kid doesn't wanna touch something, I'm doing these activities first in front of them with no expectations.
Tolerating a texture, me playing with something is a huge step. A huge step. So even mom, dad, if you're listening to this, parents, caregivers, grandparents. If you are having your kid join you in mealtime, and even if they're not partaking into it, that's a huge step that you can do.
Them just sitting in the space with the food because they're taking it all in from the smells, from the sounds of it going into your own mouth, crunching, things like that. But yeah, there's so many. I love doing puree manicures and facials. Cute. I love that. Yeah. Yeah. Especially with my, my really like girly clients.
They love it. We'll take the purees and we'll paint our fingernails and then our face. You gotta get crazy with it.
Brittyn: Yeah, you have to be really confident going into it too. It's like you gotta leave everything the door and you just gotta go for it and not care at all. I love purees for exploration because they are such a consistent texture that a lot of kids feel more comfortable with that.
Yeah. And then I've also done it to where you take a Ziploc baggie and you put puree in a baggie. You know how you can draw in it? Ooh. Yeah. And so for kids who I notice, they're going like finger splays, we can tell that they're not feeling good with the level of interaction with that food.
I like either doing that or I've even gotten the kid size gloves, like the plastic gloves on Amazon where we can also start there and then gradually over time move away from that. Or we put the food in the glove and you can tie it off.
Emily: Oh, I love that. Ooh. You could put like icing too.
Ooh. Put a hole in it and do some sort of design. I love that one.
Brittyn: Yeah. Because if you had banana or like avocado or something thicker in the mix too, it would definitely cream up like icing. I love that. I've never done that before, but that's like such a perfect example of just you gotta be on the fly, just think of random things. And sometimes I feel like the craziest things really just mesh with a child's interests.
Emily: Oh yeah. It's because play is what kids know best. That's all they wanna do. And so if you can bring this really hard, scary activity and show them that it's fun, oh my gosh, they're gonna love it. Oh, Twizzlers and what did I do with Twizzlers one time? I think I took a pencil and I made like helicopters with it. Oh my gosh. Like building things too. That's another good strategy is anything that you can build the food or whatever in. And then what you're talking about is tools.
Using that into food exploration I find is really successful. And thinking about the length of the tool. So maybe we start with, we're gonna interact with a long spoon spatula fork. And then maybe next time I'm gonna do a smaller utensil or I'm gonna cut a straw in half and we're gonna poke it or, do something like that with it.
I love using pompoms too, like craft pompoms, because it's like there, but it's not when they're interacting and pompoms are colorful, there's so many different sizes, and it's all about setting up opportunities for that child to succeed. You never ever wanna force a kid to do anything that they don't wanna do, but what are some things that we can put within their reach, in their setup that will make this child extremely successful?
And especially with no pressure. Yeah. I love this.
Brittyn: Yeah, I know. I'm like thinking of all of these different collaborations that we can do in posts on food play and everything. Oh, yeah. I also agree that food play is so important and usually when I'm talking to parents about doing it, especially if they haven't done it before, it does feel very strange to play with food when you're so used to not making a mess.
And I see some parents looking at me like, are you crazy? This sounds like it's not gonna work. And some parents, I think, feel like it's a waste of time to try to do that. Like even the smallest thing. So what would you say to a parent who feels like playing with food is a mess or a waste of time?
What would you say to them?
Emily: Yeah, I want to say your feelings are valid as a parent, as a mom. You come home, at the end of the day, you're exhausted. I get that. That is real. It doesn't have to be as complicated as you see. There's a lot of content out there where it's very involved. For my clients in the home, I go in and I say, just try it one time a week.
It could be a minute, a few seconds, and it doesn't have to look like spaghetti on the walls. You're not throwing spaghetti on the walls. You don't have to make a serious mess. It can be as simple as you're involving them in mealtime, you're having them tap something or interact with it at the table with your family, with a fork or, a tool.
Even the child picking the food that they don't like off the plate and putting it on the trash plate, yeah. Those are small steps that are gonna make a monumental impact and with repetition, it will get better. But yeah, it does not have to be always a crazy science experiment in the kitchen that you're gonna have to clean up or play with.
Yeah, so it can be small, tiny activities one time a week. Start there and build from that.
Brittyn: That's great advice. I do think sometimes social media makes it look like you just have to have all these tools and prep and schedule and this whole plan. And sometimes it can just be on the fly and small and that can still make a huge difference.
So I think that's really important that it's like the expectation versus reality too of what you see online. And I also encourage parents like you're not a feeding therapist and no one's asking, we're not asking you to be. Absolutely. You can just be like Mom and sit at mealtime and maybe you do the food play and your child doesn't join that time and that's okay.
Emily: Yeah. Just throw a few sneezes in there. Sneeze food. I don't know what to call that activity.
Brittyn: I am not kidding you. I am going to do that tonight. I am already thinking that he's gonna love it. I just already know it. And I have a 1-year-old too who I just bet she would get a kick out of that also. So thanks for that.
Emily: You could put it on her head and see if he would get a kick out of that.
Brittyn: He would lose his mind. I can't wait. I'm gonna film it. I'm gonna send it to you. I know that this is gonna be a hit. I love that. So where can people find your resources and connect with you?
Emily: Currently I am on Instagram and TikTok @thesimpleOT. Just go on my Instagram. And I post probably the majority of my content on Instagram right now.
Trying to do more on TikTok. It's hard being a working mom and doing content creation, so kudos and your app that you just dropped, can I do some silent promos?
Brittyn: I appreciate that. Yeah. It's so exciting. Yeah. I'm so excited. Thanks. I'm excited too. I'll have to give you a sneak preview.
We did a demo on Instagram today, but I would love to get you in there to test it and we hope to have a practitioner version hopefully in the next update of the app. Not this one, but where practitioners can track their clients and have different profiles and hopefully share it with the parents so that you can collab.
We'll see, I have big dreams for it, but yeah, we'll be launching mid-January to download, but we're pre-launching it now.
Emily: Awesome. Yeah, I would say your resources are some of the ones that I use the most, honestly, and I'm not getting paid to say that at all. I have no ties to you. There's a free guide, oh, I don't know the name of it.
Maybe the Food Sensory Profile, perhaps? Yes. Yes. And it has all the pictures. Girl, you put work into that. I, no joke, have probably handed that out at least a hundred times to clients and families. So that's definitely a big resource for food that I go to. And then again, I love the SOS Approach to Feeding.
They have a lot of free resources for parents on there.
Brittyn: I love the SOS. I think the foundation of what I do is SOS. And you can usually tell when other practitioners have that training too. So sensory informed. So I was not surprised.
Emily: There's a glow about them.
Brittyn: Exactly. Thank you so much for being here. I'll link all of your resources and links in the show notes so that people can easily find you. But thank you so much for taking the time today. I got so much out of our conversation. It's so nice to finally meet you and obviously some very clear takeaways that I will be implementing tonight.
I'll have to weigh in on how that went later.
Emily: Yeah, thank you for having me. And again, any collaborations you wanna do, I am so game. I love it. I think it's really hard to find a dietitian, nutritionist, or dietitian?
Brittyn: Dietitian, but technically we're dietitian nutritionists, just to make it more complicated, so I won't go on my whole spiel, but dietitian.
Emily: Okay. Okay. Okay. Sorry. And I wanna make sure I get it right. I find you're a rarity, you're a unicorn in the feeding realm and very sensory accepting. So again I love your resources. Thank you so much for having me, and I am more than willing to come on anytime. So thank you.
Brittyn: I feel like we could probably talk for a few more hours.
That's great. Thanks so much Emily for being here. And yes, everyone go follow her @thesimpleOT on Instagram and on TikTok, and thanks so much. I appreciate you being here.
Emily: Yeah, thank you so much.
Transcribed by Descript
About Brittyn Coleman, MS, RDN/LD
Brittyn Coleman, MS, RDN/LD, is a distinguished Registered Dietitian and Autism Nutrition Expert, known for her innovative, sensory-friendly feeding approach to nutrition for children on the autism spectrum. As the founder of the Nourishing Autism Collective, and as an autism sibling herself, Brittyn brings both professional expertise and personal understanding to her work. She empowers families with her expert guidance, helping children receive essential nutrients for optimal health and development. Her strategies are tailored to the unique dietary needs and sensory preferences of each child.
Brittyn's influence extends beyond her membership site through her active social media presence and her popular podcast, 'Nourishing Autism'. Her educational content on Instagram, YouTube, and other platforms has established her as a leading voice in autism nutrition, providing valuable resources, practical advice, and a supportive community for parents and professionals.
