Feeding and swallowing
A paediatric feeding disorder (PFD) is classed as impaired oral intake that is not age-appropriate, and is associated with medical, psychological, nutritional and feeding skill dysfunctions.
Are you worried about your child’s swallowing and eating? We can help you and your child be confident at mealtimes, learning how to manage the challenges when our little ones can’t eat. Our multidisciplinary team provides a full assessment, training to parents and direct intervention to address readiness for eating. We treat gross, fine and oral motor skills, develop strategies to be ready to face the sensory challenges at the table, changing food to ensure your child can safely chew and swallowing, as well as developing the skills to safely eat and swallow food and drinks.
We can support children from 6 months onwards.
Oral motor skills
Oral motor skills are the appropriate control, strength, grading, placement and movements needed for the mouth muscles to execute eating and speech. We don’t need a lot of strength for this, but we do not enough. Treating the mouth muscles through exercises that links directly with feeding and speech, develops the muscle skills to support eating and speaking.
Dysphagia
This focuses on how your child’s muscles do their job during chewing and swallowing. Whether your child uses a PEG to be fed, or your food textures are altered, we can support your child to develop the skills to gradually increase the range of food they can safely chew and swallow. Therapy not only includes teaching you how to prepare and offer food, it also develops your child’s skill to chew and eat food safely.
Sensory Feeding Disorder (SFD)
When your child becomes a “problem feeder”, he will have less than 20 foods in his diet. Eating involves ALL our senses: seeing, moving (vertibular), smelling, touching, tasting, hearing, proprioception (knowing where your body parts are without looking), and interoception (hunger, needing the toilet, being hot or cold). A child that has difficulty to process and integrate sensory information, is highly likely to have challenges with eating. Your child might be limited in the number of foods they eat or refuse a whole group of food or texture from their diet. The progress in sensory feeding therapy is often slow, but intervention keeps the spiral in the right direction.
Picky eaters
Picky eaters have a decreased range of foods, but normally more than 30 different foods. Foods are often “lost” but can be regained at some point. They will typically eat with their family, but frequently eats different meals, and much slower. Mealtimes are normally stressful and a time of discontent. Early intervention will prevent a picky eater from turning into a problem feeder, by teaching parents how to offer food so your child will explore it, and ultimately eat it.
ARFID:
“Avoidant/restricted food intake disorder”, is a fear of aversive consequences of eating, like choking, vomiting or allergic reactions (in the absence of allergy to the food), that persist. It can also be based around avoiding the sensory aspects of food, like taste, texture, smell.
Treatment should include work with a specialist psychologist alongside your feeding therapist. Our feeding therapist, will support choosing which food to practice with and practice to tolerate said food through using various strategies, while the psychologist will support the thought processes.
Book an Appointment
Book an appointment for your child to see a Speech Pathologist now.
Book Now
Contact Us
Phone
+61 8 6406 1985
Little Lions provides Therapy for Kids in-clinic (northern suburbs of Perth, Western Australia), via Telehealth, and across the community, with shorter wait times and no referral required.
NDIS and private clients welcome!