Feeding therapy at All Kids First is designed to support children who experience challenges with eating, including food refusal, limited food variety, oral-motor difficulties, or sensory sensitivities related to textures, tastes, or smells. We focus on creating positive, individualized, and consistent mealtime experiences that promote healthy eating habits and reduce stress for both the child and their family.

Each feeding program begins with a comprehensive assessment to identify the child’s current feeding skills, preferred and non-preferred foods, mealtime behaviors, and any underlying medical or sensory concerns. Based on this assessment, we develop a customized feeding plan with clearly defined goals tailored to the child’s specific needs—whether that’s increasing food variety, improving utensil use, reducing gagging, or transitioning from purees to solids. Our feeding therapy sessions are conducted in a structured environment where children can feel safe and supported. We use a combination of behavioral strategies such as shaping, reinforcement, prompting, and systematic desensitization to gradually introduce new foods and encourage appropriate mealtime behaviors. Positive reinforcement plays a key role—when a child tries a new food or meets a feeding goal, they receive praise, access to a favorite toy, or another meaningful reward.

In addition to increasing food acceptance, we target important mealtime skills like sitting at the table, chewing, swallowing, using utensils, and drinking from a cup or straw. For children with oral-motor delays, we work to incorporate tools to help improve coordination involved in eating and drinking.

Parent and caregiver involvement is essential in our feeding therapy program. We work closely with families to share strategies, model techniques, and create consistent routines that can be replicated at home. Our goal is to ensure that the progress children make in the clinic generalizes to everyday settings, making mealtimes more enjoyable and less stressful for the whole family.

Through a compassionate, individualized, and data-driven approach, our feeding therapy program helps children expand their diets, gain confidence with eating, and develop the foundational skills for a lifetime of healthy nutrition.