feeding therapy
A variety of healthy food is essential for the growth and development of children and adolescents. Getting nutrients, vitamins and protein from food helps to protect against illness, builds muscle and gives children the energy they need to play and learn. If your child or adolescent experiences an aversion to certain foods, or has problematic feeding behaviours, we can help develop their confidence and comfort levels around food, whilst expanding the range of foods they eat.
Using the Sequential – Oral – Sensory (SOS) Approach to Feeding, we can tackle food aversions, feeding difficulties, restricted food intakes and help children and adolescents who struggle to eat particular food groups (e.g. meat, fruits, vegetables). This is a holistic therapeutic approach, which assesses the various relationships between food and the senses, oral-motor skills, food education, nutrition and learning.
The SOS approach is a play based approach that encourages a desensitisation between your child and the challenging food, building step by step. Our therapy gradually moves from tolerating the food in their presence, to looking, touching, licking, and then to tasting and eventually eating. For older children and adolescents, we use an alternative approach, called 'Food Scientist'.
