If you are a parent of a child with mealtime challenges (also known as feeding difficulties, picky eating, restricted diet… the list goes on) then you might have heard about feeding therapy. But what is it?
Feeding therapy can look really different depending on who you see, the training that they have, and the approach that they use. There’re LOTS of different ways you can support kids with mealtime challenges.
Let’s work out the approach you might like to use. This is where you need to have a therapist who can have a clear, honest conversation with you about their intervention philosophy and therapy style, because you want to find a good match between your values and parenting style, your child’s personality and needs, and your therapist.
It can be helpful to think about therapy approaches as a bit of a continuum:
*It should be pointed out that very directive therapy, like Applied Behaviour Analysis (ABA) therapy, is not supported by many in the autistic community and we would like to acknowledge that ABA therapy can cause harm for some individuals. There are some autistic adults who are supportive of ABA therapy. Before undertaking this therapy approach we would suggest reading about the lived experiences in the autistic community.
The kind of feeding therapy your child receives should be matched to things like:
Your child’s personality, regulatory and sensory needs
Whether your child is neurodivergent (e.g. Autism, ADHD, ARFID, Down Syndrome)
The goal you are working on (e.g. oral motor skills vs reducing anxiety with new foods)
Feeding therapy is not a one-size-fits-all, and there are lots of programs out there
so it’s worth looking around. We’ve done a lot of different trainings, over many
years, and we still pick and choose individual therapy techniques for every child we see. What suits your child and your family will look different to another family.
You will find that your therapy sits somewhere on the continuum of more or less
directive, and might even change depending on the goal, task, your child’s mood that day… it will be a moving feast!
What actually happens in a feeding therapy session?
This varies greatly, but might include any of the following:
Cooking activities
Guided learning about unfamiliar foods
Oral motor exercises using food, or sometimes ‘tools’
Using your child’s special interests to link to learning about the food
Low pressure, autonomous exploration of foods
Play (independent play, parallel play, joint play)
Sensory exploration
Desensitisation to unfamiliar foods using techniques like ‘food chaining’
Real life practice at home and in the community
Parent coaching and counselling
You might have therapy in a clinic, at home, at school or daycare, or even at a
restaurant. We have recently had sessions at a restaurant, a food court, and a fast
food chain – we are all about real life learning!
Therapy probably shouldn’t involve:
Anything that makes your child cry or become distressed
Situations that make your child feel overwhelmed or very stressed
Situations that do not allow your child to express autonomy
Restrictive practices (like force feeding, making your child stay in their seat against their will, pressured feeding / engagement)
Set ‘schedules’ that don’t allow for breaks in therapy (therapy is important, but so is childhood)
We would encourage you to talk to your therapist about what you want your child to achieve from having therapy, and how this might look for them.
Want to know more?
an appointment.
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