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Mealtimes promote family bonds and support health and nutrition. Difficult mealtime behavior can lead to stress, risk of malnutrition, and lifestyle changes for families of children with co-occurring feeding difficulties and developmental disability. Individualized intervention packages, where parents are a primary member of the team, work to improve the feeding, eating, and/or mealtime challenges of children with disabilities and their families. This presentation will address practices for comprehensive assessment and treatment of feeding including a comprehensive definition of pediatric feeding disorder (PFD). In addition, this presentation will include inter-disciplinary evidence-based practices for mealtimes to help children safely including food characteristics, communication supports, the physical environment, and the social environment. Implications for interprofessional practice and parent implemented interventions will be discussed.
Implications for referral to other medical and community providers, interprofessional practice and parent implemented interventions will be discussed. A case example will be used to illustrate the practices and principles discussed.