Stephanie Tolley, MS, CCC-SLP, speech therapist at the Pineville office of Child and Family Development, is trained in the Sequential Oral Sensory‚Ñ¢ (SOS) Approach to Feeding program.
SOS™ is a feeding approach for children who have trouble at mealtime. This approach was founded by a child psychologist, Kay Tommey, PhD and a speech therapist, Erin Ross, PhD, CCC-SLP. SOS™ may be beneficial in many settings and populations. Parents and caregivers of children who will not eat are faced with a difficult and often puzzling challenge. Because the interplay between weight gain and a child’s experience of food can be complicated, there is rarely an easy solution when a feeding problem arises. The SOS Approach uses a transdisciplinary team approach which assess the “whole child”: organ systems, muscles, sensory development, oral motor, learning and behavior, cognition, nutrition and environment. SOS™focuses on increasing a child’s comfort level by exploring and learning about the different properties of food and allows a child to interact with food in a playful, non-stressful way, beginning with the ability to tolerate the food in the room and in front of him/her; then moving on to touching, kissing, and eventually tasting and eating foods
Additional information is available on www.spdfoundation.net.
Stephanie approves of this approach because it looks at the whole child in order to assess why a child is not eating or has a very limited diet. Intervention then begins within a child’s comfort level and kids are allowed to explore and learn about food in a non-threatening way through play.
If your child is a very picky eater or has a highly limited diet, consider scheduling a free phone Intake with one of the 5 SOS‚Ñ¢ trained speech therapists or occupational therapists at Child and Family Development to determine if an evaluation is recommended.
Read more about our SOS services here.
