Pica - eating of non-food items

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Curious if anyone has this?

My daughter is almost 4 and likes to eat sand, dirt, clay, toothpaste, flour, baking soda, salt, uncooked rice, cat food, dog food, fish food, frog food, play do, paint etc. etc.

Wondering if your ASD kids went through this phase and grew out of it? Any ideas on how to decrease it? My daughter is verbal, but quite delayed so I can't really use words to reason with her yet. Thanks

Cat food and dog food, unless tainted, are suitable for human consumption (wouldn't be my first choice). So you can at least worry a little less about what some of this will do to her.

On the other hand, that's a good reason not to buy fluoridated toothpaste or keep it on hand. (You can brush teeth with salt and baking soda if you can't use toothpaste for whatever reason, as it sounds like your daughter can't, if she's eating it.)

Baking soda's also safe to eat at least a little of.

You sure you can't reason with her? You can't even tell her these things aren't for people to eat? I don't have any suggestions, then.

Pica is common in children and pregnant women.
She may have a mineral deficiency, like zinc or iron. Or she may have too much lead in her system.
Blood tests would show both.
Try to get her eating a healthy diet, with praise when she eats something good, and a good children's vitamin tab.

My son mainly just chewed on things (plastic toys, straws, and anything he could get his hands on) Occasionally, he would put something in his mouth that he found on the floor, but he never ate things like what you are describing. I would definitely get some bloodwork done to determine if she is lacking in any vitamins or minerals.

Even though she is not verbal, she is probably capable of understanding "NO". I would try to limit her consumption of these things by keeping them out of her sight. You could also do visuals like drawing pictures of the items with an x through them and tell her "NO EAT" Even if she is nonverbal, she may be capable of understanding more than you think.

Good luck!! !

My daughter chews on and eats non suitable items sometimes. What I did is gave her something suitable to chew on. You can make a chewy necklace from food grade tubing on a string and put it around her neck to chew on. Then you can redirect her to chew on that if she chews on something inappropriate. The main things in your post that are worrysome are the sand and clay. If it's playdough it's not as bad but sand or dirt from outside is very bad-can contain lead or other heavy metals depending on where you live so definitely scold her for those. Even if she is not comprehending verbal reasoning when she does it make a big deal out of it and say "NO! We don't eat dirt!" After a while, hopefully, she will stop eating those things.

True Pica is a medical condition, you need to determine whether this is true Pica or just oral self-stim behavior. My daughter had the oral self stimming (still does). Occassionally she will eat something inappropriate like fringe from the couch cushions so I had to get rid of those things. She would do it while zoning out and it wasn't so much about the eating itself as the oral stimulation.

I chewed on everything as a child, including grinding my teeth, and now have problems with my jaw. If this is a stim it needs to be encouraged to be expressed in a different way to spare your child all the dental work I had to later go through. Or maybe it was sensory stimulation? I chewed on straws, my hair, my clothes... then later I moved on to constant gum chewing and then lollipops, but I no longer need these things anymore. I didn't try teething rings until later but now I'm unable to chew on anything like that without jaw pain now.

But eating things like you are describing sounds more like a medical problem.

I'd say get the blood tests. My daughter has chewed since the normal developmental age (what's that like 6 months?) and she's 5 now and just never stopped, she was checked for PICA but doesn't have it, hers is a stim so we provide appropriate and safe alternatives.

I suggest a hair analysis. They seem pretty accurate in evaluation mineral levels in the body. And cutting off a bit of hair won't be traumatic to a little kid. They cost about $100 and several companies in US does that.

Get blood tests just to be sure. Note that some kids naturally have an iron deficiency and will supplement it by sucking on non-food items.

More likely though, this is a stim.

Have a read through a post I did on Hartley's life with 3 boys. It covers oral stims.
http://www.hartleysboys.com/2010/10/bonus-bollard-family.html

Then... consider providing a substitute...
see: http://www.chewelry.ca/

hi i have AS and im 32 i also have an AS son who is 7 as a child i used to eat dirt and toothpaste as an adult i still want to eat dirt,but know better then to do it i have had many tests done to see y this is happening and they have found nothing,but i have also noticed i love the smell of dirt and i love to rub my feet in it.My 7 year old has never done it but he has to smell everything his clothes have to smell like omo liquid or he wont wear them if food dont smell like he thinks it should he wont eat it.

When I was a kid I would eat crayons, graphite, slate rock but I would chew on styrofoam, metal, and anything plastic.

I still chew on plastic and metal and my blood tests show up fine.