Swallowing & Feeding Therapy

What is Infant Feeding Therapy?

Medically fragile babies and those who are born prematurely often experience difficulties latching, extracting, coordinating the suck, swallow, breathe triad, consuming total volume “prescribed” and may present with many other challenges that can lead to stress for the infant and the caregiver. Full term babies can present with feeding limitations due to a variety of medical conditions, developing sensory systems, and differences in oral structure and function.

Difficulty feeding at the newborn level leads to parental/caregiver stress, infant stress and can lead to negative feelings about feedings which predicts future feeding experiences. Therapy to create quality driven coregulated feedings is always our goal to best support the infant/caregiver dyad.

In addition to continuous ongoing education, Lori attended a year long program at New York Medical College and obtained an advanced degree in Pediatric Dysphagia to best serve these babies and their families.

What is Pediatric Feeding Therapy?

Montclair Speech Therapy offers Pediatric Feeding Therapy for picky eaters and their families. At MST, a hybrid and individualized approach is utilized paying attention to each client’s sensory system, motor system, medical status, and behavioral limitations that present during feeding opportunities.

Our approach is always considering the whole child, gaining permission, and reducing the worry around mealtimes by building strong and competent feeders in fun and innovative ways. We do play with our food! Whether you are working on transitioning from bottles to cups, transitioning to solids, concerned about variety and/or intake, or behaviors during meals, we are ready and excited to meet you and your child to determine the “why” of what’s happening at mealtimes and create a program plan to get your little meeting goals happily. We are always empowering our families outside of therapeutic sessions to create a positive relationship with foods.

Additionally, Parents and professionals who find mealtime challenging can learn techniques and tips regarding our approach by setting up a personal consult with Lori through teleconference. To set up a consultation, please contact us.

What are our Behavioral Feeding Plans?

Our goal is to recognize that our children are coming to the “table” with a story and all of their previous feeding experiences. Our job is to first identify and rule out any underlying medical conditions, sensory challenges, and oral motor limitations by consulting with the child’s team to best serve the therapeutic process.

Once we have ruled out and treated any of the aforementioned challenges, we collaborate with the client’s team to create a program to determine the function of the behaviors to promote successful feeding experiences and competent happy feeders.

What is Swallowing Therapy?

Swallowing therapy is different than feeding therapy. Often times, we are treating individuals with swallowing deficits related to the oral and pharyngeal stages of the swallow. While treatment depends on the cause, symptoms, and type of swallowing challenges present, it usually includes exercises to improve muscle movement, modification to diet as needed combined with positions to help each individual swallow more effectively.