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Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics

Golisano Children's Hospital / Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics / Services / Education Assessment & Treatment of Feeding Disorders

Pediatric Feeding Disorders Program

Call (585) 275-2986 for an Appointment​ | Feeding Intake Forms

Overview

Stock compWe provide a Comprehensive Feeding Program with a transdisciplinary team in Psychology, Nutrition and Speech Pathology. Your child’s needs will be assessed by any individual or combination of services, as needed.

We see children through a range of ages and abilities. Please review the list of feeding related concerns below. The list is not all inclusive, if you have a concern not listed please contact us.

Feeding Related Concerns

  • Not eating enough foods or enough variety of foods
  • Not drinking enough liquids, or the appropriate liquids
  • Reliance on tube feeds or formula/breast feeding past age expected limits
  • Weight loss or malnutrition or poor nutrition
  • Inappropriate calorie intake - Unable to meet calorie needs (e.g. Cystic fibrosis) or TOO MUCH calorie intake
  • Comprehensive dietary analysis, assist with supplementation including formula and calorie needs
  • Food allergies/reactivity that has interfered with eating
  • GI concerns that interfere with eating
  • Coughing and choking and gagging with eating and drinking
  • Evaluation of swallowing concerns
  • History of aspiration or pneumonia or breathing issues related to feeding
  • Difficulty with feeding and swallowing safety and efficiency
  • Failure to advance textures and modalities
  • Food selectivity: only eating certain brands or kinds of foods,
  • Disruptive mealtime behaviors and food refusal
  • Difficulty advancing to solid foods
  • Anxiety surrounding trying new foods, especially with children with allergic food reactions or choking incidents

Additional Services

Pill Swallowing Training

We provide strategies to teach your child to swallow pills. Three initial visits are set up for evaluation and practice with edible candies.  Additional sessions may be needed to fully acquire the skills to swallow their medications.

Aversive Events

We provide therapy for children who have decreased their intake due to a choking event, aversive oral trauma incident, or negative reactions to allergic events. We work with families to identify appropriate foods to reintroduce, manage weight gain/loss and need for supplementation, and reduce anxiety surrounding.

Assessment Process

The Behavioral Feeding Services has a two part evaluation:

  1. Prior to scheduling an appointment, you will need to complete and return the Feeding Intake Forms.
  2. Once we receive your forms, we will schedule the evaluation. During the evaluation, we will:
    1. Complete an interview with you to gather information regarding your child’s feeding history, current concerns, structure around mealtimes, and general mealtime behaviors.
    2. We will review paperwork, so please be sure to complete it and send it in prior to the appointment.  
    3. If the family is seeing a dietitian, food record will be analyzed and recommendations provided.
    4. We will complete a meal observation. Families should bring food to the evaluation so we can observe the child’s responses to a variety of foods and any strategies the parents use to assist their child with eating.

At the end of the evaluation visit, we will make recommendations for treatment.

Treatment Services

  1. Parent Education: We feel it is important to provide parents with support in dealing with problem mealtime behaviors at home. Therapy often starts with a group parent education, where we review:
    1. The basics of feeding disorders, how to set up mealtimes at home for more success
    2. How to change how we think, talk and act around foods to make mealtimes more positive
    3.  How to improve your child’s motivation and desire to try new foods.
    4. Families will learn strategies to work on at home each week
       
  2. Individual therapy: we provide therapy weekly or every other week to then specifically address your child’s main feeding concerns and increase the number of foods they eat.

Initial therapy lasts 8 weeks, and then we will decide what further therapy is needed.

Other Team Members

Social work can assist with connecting to community resources, support around a diagnosis and problem solve any barriers to care. 

Our Nurse Practitioner is available to assist with evaluating medical concerns as they relate to feeding issues, assist in obtaining and reviewing lab work, and to help make appropriate medical referrals when needed.

Families can contact Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics at (585) 275-2986 to request an appointment with the Feeding Team.

Other Areas of Support

We work closely with Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics, Behavioral Health and Wellness, Pediatric Allergy, Pediatric Gastroenterology, and Pediatric ENT to provide comprehensive care to other conditions that may affect your child’s eating.

Our Team

Downloads: 
Pediatric Feeding Disorders Program
What is a choking event?