Feeding and Swallowing Disorders
Feeding Disorders include difficulties gathering food to suck, chew, or swallow. Swallowing Disorders, also known as Dysphagia, include difficulty in swallowing.
What Are Feeding and Swallowing Disorders?
Feeding Disorders include difficulties gathering food to suck, chew, or swallow. According to ASHA: “A child who cannot pick up food and get it to their mouth or cannot completely close their lips to keep food from falling out of their mouth may have a feeding disorder.”
Swallowing Disorders, also known as Dysphagia, include difficulty in one of the following stages of swallowing:
- Oral phase: The child has difficulty sucking, chewing, or transferring food or liquid into the throat.
- Pharyngeal phase: The child has trouble starting the swallow, or the child has trouble squeezing food down the throat and closing off the airway. This is important to prevent food or liquid from entering the airway (aspiration) or to prevent choking.
- Esophageal phase: The child has trouble relaxing and tightening the openings at the top and bottom of the feeding tube in the throat (esophagus) and squeezing food through the esophagus into the stomach.
The primary goals of feeding and swallowing intervention for children are to:
- Support safe and adequate nutrition and hydration
- Determine the optimum feeding methods and techniques to maximize swallowing safety and feeding efficiency
- Collaborate with family to incorporate dietary preferences
- Attain age-appropriate eating skills in the most normal setting and manner possible (i.e., eating meals with peers in the preschool, mealtime with the family)
- Minimize the risk of pulmonary complications
- Maximize the quality of life
- Prevent future feeding issues with positive feeding-related experiences to the extent possible, given the child’s medical situation