Food Eval.

I was curious as to what they look for during a food evaluation. My DS is getting one next week, along with a speech eval. I'm assuming it has to do with the tongue, and whether or not it can move food to the back of the mouth, or if he compensates by using his fingers to place the food already back there. Am I in the ball park?

If he does end up needing food therapy, how does that work? I'm familiar with early intervention for speech, but this is a whole new world for me.

Re: Food Eval.

My nephew had speech and feeding therapy (gagged on everything, issues with textures and didn't eat solid food until after 2.5 yo). I don't remember the eval but I know those are some issues they look for. I know the 2 go hand in hand with what you said about the tongue movement. I'm trying to think of the questions they asked during the I eval for my dd but that's all I can think of.

Re: Food Eval.

My DD actually had two feeding therapy evaluations when she was an infant, because she did not drink enough from the bottle and became upset while feeding, even when she was being treated for reflux and milk protein allergy. The first one, which I was not very happy with, was done by an OT. She looked at DD's response to different textures in her mouth, how she sucked her bottle, etc. The second one, which was done by a speech therapist who practices exclusively doing pediatric feeding therapy, looked more at the movement of DD's tongue, her ability to chew, etc. DD had a delayed tongue thrust, in that she was still pushing food out of her mouth at 7 months. She also had DD go for a swallow study, during which she was diagnosed with dysphagia, a swallowing disorder, and we then had to thicken her liquids so that she didn't aspirate on them. She did not get actual feeding therapy though, just things for us to do with her at home.

I work in a special ed preschool, and the speech therapists here do feeding groups with some of our kids who have a variety of feeding issues.