What Feeding Therapy Looks Like (And how that translates to Mighty Tasters’ Online Feeding Program)
Feeding Therapy is a type of intervention that works on helping a person learn to eat orally or learn to eat more efficiently and effectively.
As a pediatric speech language pathologist, I have been doing feeding and swallowing therapy with kids since my first internship back in 2008! I have worked on feeding and swallowing in a variety of settings including hospital, outpatient, clinic, school, in home, and via telehealth. I have worked with patients in the hospital who were NPO (no food by mouth) and only fed via feeding tube and patients who had a limited food inventory and were just wanting to learn to try new foods. And kiddos everywhere in between!
Typically in feeding therapy I’m looking at what’s the cause of the feeding difficulty, whether that be an oral motor weakness, a sensory processing difficulty, anxiety, a learned behavior, etc. and targeting that thing through the actual task of eating. Despite the goal for most kiddos being to “eat more foods,” therapy itself can actually look quite different depending on what the underlying cause is and what the resulting behaviors at mealtimes look like.
For example, there could be two kiddos of similar age who both have a limited food inventory of 10 foods. So they look similar to an outside eye. However, while kiddo A might be more sensitive and anxious about trying new foods and more prone to shutting down when presented with a challenge, kiddo B might be less sensitive to change and generally have less anxiety around foods, but still refusing new foods. Contrariwise depending on parent interaction during meals, structure and routine during meals, previous trauma, and/or typical variety of meals can play a huge role as well. These are all factors I’m looking at during that initial feeding evaluation of each kid. Once I get a sense of what’s going on in the home environment, build some rapport with the family, and begin to understand this particular kiddo’s personality, I determine reasonable and reachable goals for this individual child. I work with the family to prioritize foods that might make mealtime easier or that are generally just important for the family and begin to educate the family on how therapy will be conducted and set expectations. Setting expectations are huge as feeding therapy can be very slow progressing and often feel like two steps forward, one step back.
Feeding therapy can also be so frustrating at times for families because learning this new skill of trying new foods is really challenging for most kiddos. But we as adults, with our higher level reasoning, have a hard time seeing how eating can be so “scary” or “challenging”. Especially when it’s so delicious! 😜 But thinking about how our kids are continuously inundated with new information to process and how so much of it is out of their control, it makes sense that mealtime becomes a place where they have some actual control over the newly presented information: eating. New food can feel scary and invasive and it can be easier to just say “no” than try to process another new piece of scary information that day.
What I’ve learned from my 14 years of feeding and swallowing therapy is that each kiddo is different and going to respond differently to intervention, so every plan of care needs to be individualized to be the most effective. But also, that parents are incredibly smart and intuitive when it comes to their child. And with adequate guidance and education, parents become the most effective therapists their kiddo could ever find.
This being said, of course there are cases where kiddos have more medical involvement or are weaning from a feeding tube or have a diagnosis that requires direct 1-on-1 intervention from a board certified therapist or specialist, and I continue to see those kiddos in person and via telehealth for direct treatment. However! The majority of families that seek out feeding therapy for their picky or selective eater or problem feeder, are able to obtain enough information and training over a few months of weekly sessions with me, that they are then able to take the skills and knowledge they’ve learned and carry out “feeding therapy” with greater specificity and frequency than I as a therapist ever could! And it’s amazing! My one hour per week couldn’t hold a candle to you incredible parents!! (Is that the term, couldn’t hold a candle? What does that even mean tho? 🤪) So being able to reach more of you super parents and to help more kiddos out there has always been my inspiration. I’m pretty sure I can achieve world peace by helping one picky eater at a time…😁 Ha!
So how does this translate into an online feeding program?
Mighty Tasters Online Feeding Program was developed by taking all the commonalities I see when working with families who have a picky eater in the home. It’s all the background knowledge I teach from session to session including typical oral motor development and what you might see if there is weakness or discoordination involved. It teaches parents feeding therapy terms and their meanings such as food inventory, flexible thinking, chaining, etc. It provides you with strategies and ideas to use at your own pace during meals and snacks. And more importantly, it gives you a step-by-step framework for implementing all the information and strategies you learn. But MOST importantly, Mighty Tasters looks at your individual child and their specific food inventory and creates goals specific to your kiddo! That’s right. I, Chelsea Bell, write food goals specific to YOUR CHILD. I’m right there with you the entire time, analyzing the data you send me, supporting you and your kiddo, and celebrating all your successes!
I know it seems like there are so many feeding programs out there that promise to help your picky eater. Trust me, I’ve paid for them all in doing research to develop mine. 😆 And most of them have some very useful information and ideas! But Mighty Tasters is the only one developed out of 14 years of feeding and swallowing therapy experience by a board certified speech language pathologist who individualizes your program for YOU! I want to help you and your family achieve happy meals and healthy kiddos!
So come join the Mighty Tasters community! Sign up for the spring session online feeding program starting this month!! See you there!
Working toward that world peace,
Chelsea ✌️
