Feeding/Swallowing Therapy

FEEDING/SWALLOWING THERAPY

We use a unique approach to address feeding and swallowing issues at The Center for Therapeutic Strategies. We collaborate with occupational therapists, physicians, dentists, and functional neurologists as needed to provide a foundation for addressing the underlying issues of the individual’s feeding and/or swallowing problem.

Feeding therapy results from the individual having a limited diet due to difficulty staying focused on the task of eating, chewing appropriately, moving food around from side to side or back to front in the mouth, swallowing the food, or having aversions to particular smells, textures, or tastes of food items.

Our unique approach involves addressing the underlying issues:

• Cognitive attention and focus to the eating process
• Acceptance of sensory inputs of sight, smell, and texture of the food items
• Self regulation for the specific steps of the swallowing sequence
• Behavior modification steps to generalize food acceptance to increase intake, diet variety, and generalization of eating location
• Referral to collaborate with a team of practitioners to address underlying issues of weak core muscles, neurological or biomedical digestive issues

Swallowing/ Myofunctional therapy is used to address the “reverse” swallow condition, which can cause an improper dental bite. If this is left untreated it can impede the effectiveness of lasting orthodontia intervention. This condition is often discovered by the individual’s dentist or orthodontist.

Therapy at Center for Therapeutic Strategies for myofunctional (reverse swallow) therapy is addressed with:

• Strengthening postural muscles to open airways for adequate nasal breathing
• Diminish or eliminate mouth breathing with behavior modification
• CranioSacral therapy to balance palate and oral cavity with cranium
• Exercises to correct the deviate swallowing pattern
• Incremental steps using behavioral modification to increase frequency of the new swallowing pattern to become habitual in all settings