Kids Center feeding programs use a multidisciplinary approach including medical nutrition therapy, speech therapy and occupational therapy focused on feeding needs. This includes individual therapy sessions, group sessions and our multidisciplinary feeding clinic.
Specialized Individual Therapy
We have both speech-language pathologists and occupational therapists who have extensive experience and training in feeding disorders and interventions. Most of our feeding interventions are provided in individual therapy sessions. We provide feeding interventions for children of all ages and have therapists who have many years of experience treating infants aged birth – 6 months as well as older children with challenges such as poor oral motor control as well as picky eaters and feeding challenges related to sensory diagnoses.
Medical Nutrition Intervention
Kids Center has a pediatric dietitian on staff through a collaboration with the Kentucky Office for Children with Special Healthcare Needs. Our dietitian provides medical nutrition services for patients from infancy through age 21 including nutrition counseling, assistance with healthy weight maintenance and other nutrition related challenges including gut issues, “picky eaters”, food allergies, specialized diets and assisting a child who is working to move from g-tube feeding to oral feeding. Medical nutrition intervention is critical for many of our young patients with chronic diagnoses.
In addition to individual sessions, our dietician also participates in our feeding groups and feeding clinic.
Sequential-Oral Sensory (SOS) Feeding Program
The SOS Approach to Feeding is a multidisciplinary program for assessing and treating children with feeding and weight/growth difficulties and is provided in a group setting at Kids Center. Our “groups” consist of 3 – 5 children, speech-language pathologists, occupational therapists, our pediatric dietician and volunteers.
This approach has been developed over the course of 30 years through the clinical work of Dr. Kay Toomey, a renowned clinical psychologist who specializes in feeding challenges, in conjunction with colleagues from several different disciplines including: Pediatricians, Occupational Therapists, Registered Dietitians, and Speech-Language Pathologists. Per their program description, the SOS program “integrates motor, oral, behavioral/learning, medical, sensory and nutritional factors and approaches in order to comprehensively evaluate and manage children with feeding/growth problems. It is based on, and grounded philosophically in, the “normal” developmental steps, stages and skills of feeding found in typically developing children.”
Feeding Clinic
Kids Center Feeding Clinic is one of the leading multidisciplinary feeding clinics in the state. Evaluation in this clinic helps determine the abilities and medical needs of your child to help them progress toward eating by mouth safely and successfully.
Our monthly clinic is staffed by a pediatric dietician, speech-language pathologist, occupational therapist and physical therapist. The clinic team evaluates the child in a multidisciplinary setting and works with the family to determine next steps for addressing identified challenges whether it is strategies to use at home or recommendations for new or ongoing therapy interventions.