Eat a banana

#banana#fruit#snack#eating#peeling

A banana changes character while it is being eaten: the peel turns sticky, the smell stays on the fingers and the texture is softer than most other fruit. The steps here below cover the whole way from unpeeled fruit to the skin in the bin.

A boy in a blue shirt lifts a peeled banana toward his open mouth.

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Biting into the banana

A boy in a blue shirt lifts a peeled banana toward his open mouth.

A boy in a red shirt holds up a banana he has already taken a bite from.

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Holding the banana

A boy in a red shirt holds up a banana he has already taken a bite from.

Holding the peeled banana with both hands, a boy opens his mouth to eat.

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Eating the banana

Holding the peeled banana with both hands, a boy opens his mouth to eat.

A boy bites into a banana that is peeled halfway down.

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Taking a bite of banana

A boy bites into a banana that is peeled halfway down.

About this visual support

Few fruits change as much in the hand as a banana does. The peel is dry at first and sticky a minute later, the smell stays on the fingers long after the last bite, and the flesh is soft in a way that feels unexpected if you were braced for something to chew. For children with autism it is often that particular mix of smell, stickiness and softness that makes the fruit harder than it looks.

Visual support helps by making each move predictable before it happens. The child sees that the peel is broken at the top, pulled down in strips and set aside, and does not have to discover the stickiness halfway through. One tip: peel all the way down and fold the skin back like a wrapper around the lower half, so the hand never touches the flesh and the difficult part disappears without swapping the banana for something else. A napkin laid out before the peeling starts also saves a sticky hand on the trouser leg.

Routined can show the snack as a short picture sequence, handy when the same fruit is eaten at preschool or on a day out.