Feeding Therapy
Signs your child may benefit from feeding therapy
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Eats a very limited range of foods, avoiding certain textures, tastes, or food groups.
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Frequent coughs or choking during meals, or demonstrates signs of aspiration (food or liquid entering the airway).
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Mealtime is consistently stressful, with the child exhibiting extreme resistance, anxiety, or tantrums during feeding.
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Slow weight gain or growth delays.
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Gagging or vomiting before, during, or after meals.
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Consistently refuses to eat specific foods or food groups
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Strong aversions to certain food textures, temperatures, tastes, or smells, indicating sensory sensitivities that impact eating.
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Difficulty chewing, biting, or moving food around in the mouth.
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Significantly delayed in reaching age-appropriate feeding and self-feeding milestones.
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Difficulty transitioning to solid foods
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Recurrent digestive issues, such as stomachaches, constipation, diarrhea, or other gastrointestinal problems.
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Underlying medical conditions (e.g., prematurity, developmental delays, neurological disorders) that impact their feeding abilities.
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Signs of anxiety, stress, or fear related to food, mealtimes, or eating in social settings.
Areas we address
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Oral motor skills
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Sensory processing
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Texture and food aversions
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Self-feeding skills
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Swallowing skills
Techniques we use:
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Sequential Oral Sensory Approach (SOS)
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AEIOU (acceptance, exposure, independence, observation and understanding)
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Responsive Feeding
Our programs
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We offer both school-aged and infant feeding programs.
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We have partnered with Capital Pediatric Nutrition to create a multidisciplinary feeding program that includes nutrition, occupational therapy, and speech therapy.
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Our school aged evaluations take place in our office. You can expect to be present for 2-2.5 hours. Your child will receive a full occupational therapy evaluation tailored towards skills needed for feeding, as well as a full oral motor evaluation from a speech language pathologist. During the evaluation, you will consult with our Nutrition partner.
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Our infant feeding evaluation will take place in the privacy of your home with a pediatric Occupational Therapist who is a Certified Lactation Counselor. We are able to support your family with both breast and bottle feedings.
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We request that families participate in feeding therapy for a minimum of 12 weeks to ensure that skills from therapy are generalizing to your child's meal routines.
