Autistic children and adolescents and their parents: being and having meals together

Abstract

Objective This study analyzed collective activities, involving eating with autistic children and adolescents, their families and professionals and included walks to street-food markets, picnics and participating in Festa Junina, aiming at investigating feeding in the perspective of commensality. Methods Ethnographic research carried out, based on participant observation during a walk to the street-food market, picnic and Festa Junina, conducted with 19 children and 13 adolescents of an Institution for autistic people. The data recorded were analyzed within the phenomenology framework. Results The activities showed the interaction of autistic children/adolescents with space, people and food, revealing the way autistic people relate, belong and position themselves. The investigators highlighted commensality, emphasizing food as a mediator of relationships, considering a scenario that may present contradictions and power relationships, and allows new possibilities of being together with this audience, outside home and beyond therapeutic care. Conclusion Staying and eating in a group influences the autistic child/adolescent and the activities were configured as an invitation to shared meals, with unexpected behaviors that went beyond institutional therapeutic purposes.