Did you know that your Speech-Language Pathologist can help with feeding difficulties your child has?! This is an area that often is not talked about or thought to be an area that we can help with! Feeding also happens to be an area that I love to help families with! My passion for feeding started while in graduate school while completing one of my clinical externships. The SLP that mentored me was passionate about feeding and had multiple children with feeding difficulties on her caseload. While observing her the first few weeks, I was able to see in a short amount of time how these children, who had started off by crying and crawling under the table when a new food was brought out, began to quickly become more comfortable with foods and even begin to taste them on their own! I was so marveled by how each child was so different and how she responded to them to help them learn to accept, taste, and even eat new foods.
After a few weeks of watching this (and reading all of her feeding resources!), she walked me through my first feeding session! I was instantly in love with this area and how even small changes made a big impact in their everyday life. Since then, I have completed multiple courses on feeding therapy with children.
Eating is such a social piece of our lives. We eat dinner as a family to talk about how our days were, we meet people for lunch or dinner to catch up, and there is always food at parties. These are situations that become difficult for families who have a child who is a picky eater. It also impacts how they think about taking a trip. Oftentimes, parents will have to make food ahead of time and bring it with, or worry that their child will not eat while they are away. These are all times that should be enjoyable and every family deserves to have these times.
So, why might a child be a picky eater? There are a few reasons a child may be limiting his/her diet. Two of the biggest reasons are: he/she cannot handle the sensory properties of the foods, or he/she cannot manage the foods to appropriately chew and swallow the foods. These are challenges that a child might be battling with that may lead to behaviors that are difficult to deal with and can become stressful during mealtimes.
Stay tuned for more information on the impact of sensory properties of foods, the skills needed to effectively chew and swallow foods, when to ask for help with a picky eater, and how we may address feeding in therapy!
-Amber-