Feeding Therapy
What is Feeding Therapy?
Feeding Therapists at Eatability Feeding Services are certified in the SOS Approach to Feeding, an internationally recognised approach for assessing and treating children with feeding difficulties. Children are gradually exposed to different foods in a socially reinforcing environment and assisted to progress up 32 steps involved in the task of eating at a pace that respects their readiness. Children are taught to improve their feeding skills, overcome any fear responses and apply coping strategies. They learn skills that enable them to eat a variety of food types and textures.
Therapy is play-based for younger children and focuses on the typical pattern of feeding development. Older children become ‘explorers’ and learn about foods through experiments. A combination of both approaches is applied for children moving between the preoperational and operational cognitive stages. For all therapy, children and parents are active parts of therapy sessions with the feeding therapist or “Food School Teacher”.
The Feeding Therapist works on developing a strong trusting relationship with children and parents. Children learn what to expect in feeding therapy and know that they will not be forced to do anything that their body is not ready for.
There is an emphasis on education to ensure that parents understand the cause of their child’s feeding difficulties and how they can support them to improve their eating/drinking skills, mealtime behaviours, mealtime routine/environment and address any underlying medical issues. Parents are taught how to generalise what they have learnt in the clinic to the home environment.
Feeding therapy is provided by qualified Speech Pathologists at the Feeding Clinic or within your home.
My name is Maddie. I will gag at the sight of broccoli, except if you call it green trees. I love green trees.
My name is Evie. I’m a vegetarian. I don’t eat any vegetables. They grow in the dirt and that's disgusting.
My name is Jackson. My favourite food is sultana bran. But I won’t eat it if it looks too brown and the milk disappears. When that happens, I need mummy to make me a new new bowl of sultana bran. I also need it served in my purple bowl with a spoon. If you put it in a different coloured bowl without my straw, I won’t eat it
My name is Emily. I like strawberry milk, strawberry jam and strawberry cake. But I hate strawberries. I would never eat a strawberry!
