Reviving this thread because I'm concerned about my son with autism. He's five, he's been diagnosed since shortly after his second birthday, and for the most part he has been making amazing strides. He "graduated" from his extracurricular speech and occupational therapies over a year and a half ago. Now he is in a special autism preschool class, goes to a group therapy program twice a week after school, and is going to be transitioning to the "regular" kindergarten class after this summer.
The main thing we're worried about are his eating habits. For years I could count the amount of foods he would eat on one hand. It has grown a little bit in recent months, but the real issue is that he usually doesn't want to eat at all. He very rarely asks for food and he often refuses it completely. When he actually is fine with eating, he rarely finishes his meals. Sometimes he gets really interested in one of his favorite foods and will ask for it over and over, but we don't want him to get sick so we try to avoid that.
Lately he's been throwing a fit every morning when we tell him to eat breakfast. He'd rather play/read/do anything than sit and eat, but if we let him have a toy/book/TV while eating he gets too distracted to eat. His grandmother usually feeds him while my wife and I go to work early in the morning, and we found out that she's taken to hand-feeding him most of the time because he'll take his food that way and it gets done in time for school.
Honestly, as a person with eating issues myself, I don't care that much about the lack of variety compared to him just not wanting to eat most of the time. Anyone have any experience with this sort of thing?
I do, because I
was that kid, and still have the legacy of such.
To clarify, I'm autistic myself, so my experience isn't quite what you'd be after, but I've been able to gleam some of it from how my parents have commented on it over the years. My palette is still pretty limited and plain, but it is functional, and so I'm able to do enough as to make different meals for myself.
Now admittedly, I wasn't diagnosed until I was like eight, so my parents didn't really approach my behaviour from the perspective that I was autistic for quite a while. Prior to it, it seems they were... stern but supportive, as such. For example, I was obsessed with McDonalds as a child, and would sometimes throw a tantrum if I wasn't allowed to eat it. Sometimes they would just wait it out and not reward the bad behaviour (to clarify, in the explicit sense that it was something I shouldn't be doing, not that it was solely inconvenient to them), whilst say, if they wanted me
to eat something, they would give me some kind of minor encouragement - if I ate now, McDonalds later in the week, so forth.
When he comes to what favourite foods he does have, try to pick out those that can function in relation to differing mealsets. For example, with me, it was quickly apparent that I liked white rice - which was good because being a side dish, its extremely easy to put together with other foods. So even if I didn't like one half or third of a meal that they wanted me to try out, there was still something that I
could eat and would want to. If you introduce something new, you use the familiarity of his favourites to cushion it. Perhaps rotate between favourites so you're not just doing the same thing several days in a row.
Ideally, it'll get a bit easier as he grows older, and is more able to consciously reflect on his preferences - and also better realise why eating is important. Until that point, and perhaps to help him reach it, some kind of basic reward system could be of use, though I will admit its not perfect given his current age. But if you were to use it, such a system would ideally be minor enough in each instance that he can put it off or not feel
too bad for failing that obligation, but significant enough in the longterm that he
wants to do it. So say, each time he eats his breakfast, he gets a star, and X amount of stars will allow him some reward - a new toy, for example. Something that he's expressed interest in but you have either refused or failed to justify; suddenly he has an avenue for it, and gives you enough time to anticipate it.
I apologise if I've wrongly presumed or this sort of advice runs contrary to anything else you've received.
or " because you took the bus" Doesn't make a whole lot of sense but I found it funny. Keep in mind I have been working with him for a year and a half and I only seen him get really angry twice. 
