Feeding Therapy
What is Feeding Therapy?
Feeding therapy helps children or babies eat better! It involves working with each family to identify the reasons why a child is having a difficult time eating/participating in meals and addressing each in therapy.
Treatment is individualized for each child and family. Therapy will help teach parents how to support their child in creating positive mealtimes at home, outside of therapy.
What can Feeding Therapy teach?
Feeding therapy can help teach: age-appropriate chewing skills, self-feeding skills, how to introduce new foods to expand a restricted diet, positive language to use during mealtimes to reduce conflicts, how to position/seat a child at the table for more effective meals, and how to build oral skills in children who are tube-fed.
Frequently Asked Questions about Feeding Therapy
How can I enroll my child in feeding therapy?
First, your child will need a referral for a feeding evaluation (CPT 92610) from their pediatrician or a specialist. They must be medically cleared to receive feeding therapy. The referral can be faxed to us at +1-855-618-2437. Once we receive a referral, your child will be scheduled for an evaluation.
What can I expect for my child's feeding evaluation?
For babies, families are asked to bring their child’s formula and preferred bottle to the feeding evaluation. For older children, please bring 2 preferred and 2 non-preferred foods.
Some children are g-tube dependent and are not eating any food by mouth – this is okay! Please bring any items your child likes to mouth or seems interested in OR anything your child may be drinking.
At the feeding evaluation, the goal is to see your child eat/drink in order to assess their current oral-motor skill sets. Some children don’t feel comfortable eating on the first visit and this is okay! At the end of the evaluation, we will determine the frequency of therapy and develop goals together. Any questions you have will be answered at this time.
How often will my child go to feeding therapy?
The frequency of feeding therapy is usually once a week for 45 minutes. In therapy each week, your family will be given some ‘homework’, or feeding strategies, to try using at home. Feeding therapy usually lasts for up to 6 months at a time – it will not continue indefinitely.
Who provides the food in feeding therapy?
For children eating solid foods, we will provide some food and we will also ask each family to bring food from their house – this is because we want your child to eat the food your family already eats.
Each week, we will decide on 1-3 foods to bring to therapy for the following week – these will be foods that you usually have in your pantry!
My child has already received feeding therapy before. What makes yours different?
There are many different approaches to treat children who are having a difficult time eating. If your child did not make progress in feeding therapy, maybe the approach wasn’t a good fit for you or your family. It is okay to ask your child’s feeding therapist what approach/strategies they use to treat your child!
At The Feeding Clinic, we primarily use the SOS Approach to Feeding Program. This program integrates motor, oral, behavioral/learning, medical, sensory and nutritional factors to comprehensively treat children, because all of these play a role in mealtimes! Ali is currently the only SLP in El Paso that is certified in the SOS Approach.
Here, parents/family/caregivers are required to join therapy sessions, to learn the therapy strategies. We do not want children to learn to eat for us only in the therapy room, we want them to eat at home!
Lastly, The Feeding Clinic is always willing to coordinate the medical care of your child with other professionals (doctors, dietitians, other therapists, specialist,) if you provide consent. We would love to work with anyone else treating your child so that we can all be on the same page!