Helping children with feeding difficulties

Children with SPD (Sensory Processing Disorder) can be over responsive to stimuli, including foods, or have oral-motor difficulties that make it hard for them to chew and swallow.  As a result of these difficulties, a child can develop an aversive response to feeding.  The S.O.S (Sequential Oral Sensory) Approach to Feeding, a systematic desensitization program to treat children with feeding issues, is useful in these situations.  The approach uses positive reinforcement and moves sequentially in 32 stages, starting with developing tolerance to food to finally chewing and eating.

I recently completed a year-long S.O.S. treatment with a two-year-old boy who refused all foods except breast milk.  This boy had SPD with an overly reactive touch system throughout his body.  I initially worked on improving his ability to tolerate touch across his body and then worked to desensitize his face and mouth area to make it easier for him to tolerate food.  Next, I created a playful environment for him to interact with food, which led to him independently taste, chew and swallow.  Over the course of a year, he developed the ability to eat a wide variety of nourishing table food, and by the end of our treatment, he was happily picking and eating vegetables from my garden.