SOS Feeding Therapy

Eating Disorders Can be Treated

Does your child have difficulty eating and/or maintaining an adequate weight? Problems such as aversion to all foods in a particular group or with a particular texture, choking, gagging, vomiting, nasal reflux, or a history of coordination problems with breathing and eating often indicate a need for therapy.

Feeding issues often manifest themselves early in life. An infant who routinely cries and fusses during feeding, or has difficulty transitioning to baby food, a cup, and eventually solid foods by 16 months of age, may be helped by early therapeutic intervention.

The SOS Approach

The Sequential Oral Sensory (SOS) approach is a developmental feeding therapy that allows the child to interact with the food in a playful, non-stressful way. It helps increase the child’s comfort level by exploring different properties of foods, including the color, shape, texture, smell, taste and consistency.

The SOS approach follows a systematic hierarchy to feeding, from tolerating foods in the room, interacting with foods, smelling, touching, tasting and eventually eating the food. Parent education and involvement are an essential part of the SOS approach.

Parents may observe sessions with TV monitors or be directly involved in the sessions. Therapeutic meals are initiated as a home program with recommendations from the therapist. Behavioral techniques are utilized as needed to increase the child’s follow-through with the SOS protocol.

The SOS approach can be used in individual sessions as well as with small groups of three to four children. Feeding groups are held as a continuation of the protocol in addition to or upon completion of one-on-one sessions.