The Nuance Between a Responsive & Behavioral Approach to Feeding Therapy: Part 2

Part 2: The Case For a Responsive Approach to Feeding Therapy (Missed Part 1: Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) Professionals & Feeding Intervention? Find it HERE.)   Drawbacks of Behavioral Methods in Feeding Therapy Practitioners who use behavioral modification methods in their therapy sessions do so because they believe them to be useful tools for achieving their agenda of getting a child to eat. I have worked with therapists who use them, have been directly referred patients from inpatient behavioral feeding programs, and have seen many behavioral protocols that parents have been asked to follow within these programs/therapies. My core belief system rejects the idea that it is my job to “get” a child to eat, and therefore it is not necessary for me to use any tool that may cause anxiety in child I am treating, which is often the case when these methods are used. I have heard ABA clinicians use the term “break the child” in reference to the point in therapy where a child ultimately gives up and begins complying with “taking bites” in therapy; this smacks of dehumanization and is cruel, in my opinion. Another explanation for “giving in” could be found in trauma theory. Research is needed to examine if giving in and eating is actually a trauma response. “When the dorsal vagal nerve shuts down the body, it can move us into immobility or dissociation”…that comes after “fight or flight”, where a child is trying to avoid eating whatever the adult is presenting. A child who ‘zones out’ after fighting tooth and nail to avoid something they perceive to be dangerous is not ‘complying’. They are...

Feeding Contraption for Convenience Doesn’t Make the Cut

When I came across this new invention that made it on to Shark Tank recently, my first thought was “huh”. The “Beebo’s industry-leading technology holds your baby’s bottle for you, allowing you to use your free hand without restriction.” When describing what the Beebo does, the biggest draw for parents is that it is “hands-free”.  According to the manual found online, here are some of the perks: “Hands free feeding lets you: Read a book to your baby. Answer the phone. Use the remote.” Digging into what these perks actually mean is what got me, though.  Let’s take them one at a time. Read a book to your baby. Yes, reading to your baby is a good thing. But where are your eyes when you are reading? On the book. NOT on your baby. When you are feeding a baby, especially a newborn, it is very important to pay attention to their cues and signals. Is the flow too fast? Do they need a break? When the bottle is tilted continuously like this contraption does, the baby does not have control over the flow of the milk, so the milk can flow more quickly than your baby can swallow, increasing the risk of choking or aspiration (liquid in the lungs). If the baby falls asleep while the bottle is still in her mouth and you aren’t looking at her (because you are reading a book or looking at the TV/phone), she is at risk for aspiration as well because the milk keeps flowing into her mouth and she isn’t actively swallowing. Making the feeding the priority creates the opportunity to...

Chew on This: Considerations for Development of Oral Skills in Extreme Picky Eaters

When I evaluate a toddler that hasn’t made the transition to table food, one of the first questions I ask is “Did he mouth on toys/hands/lovies as an infant?” If the answer is yes, I always ask how much and how that child compared to other children in the home with regard to mouthing and early acceptance of oral play. However, more often than you would think, I hear from parents that these children with extreme aversion to texture in their food did not mouth at all. They blithely say “We didn’t have to baby-proof!”, unaware that their well-behaved infant’s choice to leave that paperclip on the floor is at least part of why he hasn’t moved on from pureed foods. I recently saw an older toddler who fit this description exactly—to the extreme. When observing her oral motor skills without food, there were no noticeable deficiencies. Lateral tongue movement was present, she could open and close her mouth in mock chewing, was able to blow a kiss, and kept her tongue in her mouth where it is supposed to be. No outward signs that this child had never had one bite of actual food. Not one bite swallowed. Theirs was a successful breast feeding dyad, but that was the only sustenance she got, and not from lack of trying on the parents’ part. So why couldn’t this child learn to eat? Interestingly, the family had many older siblings who had mouthed as infants, accepted spoon feedings of purees without incident, and had no trouble learning to eat the family foods. So it wasn’t what the parents had or...

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