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Tag: picky eater

Virtual

Virtual Therapy for Children

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Using a virtual platform to reach families near and far.  Our pediatric therapists are excellent at keeping children engaged and entertained while working toward their goals We work closely with parents, caregivers and other team members—to set the child up for success at home, school, and in their community.

  • Virtual Visits

    A virtual visit is available to all or PT, OT, and ST kiddos.  Virtual visits allow your child to continue services if scheduling, weather and/or health conflict occurs.  Virtual visits are intended for our “clinic” kiddos and can be set up as one time or as needed.  The session can be set up.  It opens longer communication between caregiver and treating therapist (child does not need to be at the screen the entire meeting) as well as allows Therapist to observe child in their home environment.  Together with your clinician, you can adjust clinic and home education plan to more closely reflect your child’s life at home.

  • Developmental Screening (OT, PT, Speech)

    A virtual developmental screening offers an opportunity for parents to ask questions and get answers from a licensed pediatric Occupational Therapist, Physical Therapist, or Speech Language Pathologist. If we don’t have the answers, we can offer direction and help you find the answers from reputable professionals that we trust.

  • Speech and Language Therapy

    Telehealth Speech & Language Therapy is a convenient and effective treatment solution for common speech and language disorders in toddlers, children, teens, and young adults. Our SLPs provides professional treatment and support for you and your child!

  • Lactation Counseling & Infant Feeding Therapy

    One-on-one in-person and virtual breast and bottle feeding lactation  support services. 

  • Oral Motor & Feeding Therapy

    There is nothing more productive than feeding therapy at home in your child’s own kitchen with food and eating utensils at your fingertips!  Children are more comfortable and there is no need to bridge the gap from the clinic to your home.  

  • Teacher, Parent & Child Classes

    BDI Playhouse therapists provide virtual presentations for preschool teachers and parents who are invested in expanding their knowledge about supporting and accommodating their children.

Cooking

Why You’ll Love Virtual Visits

  • Parent Education

    Use of telehealth allows for parents to be more candid with their descriptions of challenges throughout their day. Telehealth provides your therapist a real-life image of what a day can look like for your child. We also have increased time and opportunity to see and hear your specific questions and needs. Then we’ll help you apply strategies via live video to the location where you are noticing a challenge!

  • Equipment

    Telehealth allows the therapist to see the environment in which your child spends most of their time. A peek at the surroundings through intervention via telehealth gives the therapist (and you as the parent!) more feasible and realistic strategies for therapy carry-over at home. You don’t need fancy swings and expensive games to progress development. We’ll help you find items already in your home that work just as well!

  • Home Modifications

    When a therapist is able to see your child interacting with their favorite toys, playing in their favorite rooms, or going through their routine at home, we get a better understanding of what adjustments to the environment can be made to improve performance within each area.For example, your therapist might suggest moving a distracting item to the other side of the room, adding a step below your child’s feet at the table, or modifying the amount of light/sound in a room during specific tasks to increase success and independence within the home!

  • Home Exercise Programming

    As a therapist, it is our job to give you ideas of how to “practice” skills at home, but we can much more accurately do this part of our job when we see the child’s home and abilities within the home. Giving your therapist a snapshot of your day via technology allows us to assign you more feasible activities to do within your existing home program.

  • Get Up & Move

    Kids are not always great at occupying their own time. Therapy provided via telehealth can provide an opportunity for your child to get up and move within the home, as directed by their therapist. On slow or inactive days, a visit from your therapist via your screen may be the perfect way to stay active, occupied, and healthy!

  • Routine Management

    Technology advancements now allow for your therapist to walk through a routine you and your child go through each day (getting dressed, packing up and going to school, teeth brushing, mealtime, etc.). With your therapist inside your screen, we can provide information/tips for how to more easily manage the routines that are causing you trouble, without getting in your way!

  • OT, PT, and Speech Therapy From The Comforts of Home

    With telehealth intervention, your therapist can provide intervention without the stress of having to pack up the kids, drive to the clinic, unload the family, send off your kiddo and figure out how to entertain your other children for the hour. What a relief! You can get your child much-needed intervention without leaving your couch! How convenient is that?!

  • Virtual Speech and Language Therapy

    • Apraxia
    • Articulation
    • Auditory Processing
    • Executive Functioning
    • Expressive and/or Receptive Language
    • Phonological Disorder
    • Reading Comprehension
    • Social Language
    • Stuttering and Fluency issues

  • Birth – 3

    • Parent coaching during playtime.  Small changes a parent can incorporate into their every day routine to help their infant and toddler develop speech and language skills
  • 3 years + older

    • Direct intervention with parent/caregiver assistance dependent on child’s independence 
  • A comprehensive list of areas addressed in virtual speech therapy

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Virtual Speech
breastfeeding

  • Virtual Lactation Counseling

    • Meet with our Certified Lactation Counselor on YOUR time!
    • Mom’s health and comfort
    • Baby’s success on the breast/bottle
    • Family support for mom & baby
    • Preparing for and maximizing pumping
    • Reflux, Spit-up, Vomiting Support
    • Finding the perfect position and latch

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  • Virtual Feeding Therapy

    • Turn mealtime into positive experiences
    • Increase oral motor strength and coordination
    • Teach your child to tolerate, interact with, or eat foods of varying textures and consistencies
    • Address cup, straw, and bottle drinking
    • Utilize specialized techniques such as Beckman Oral Motor Approach, Food Chaining, Sequential Oral Sensory (SOS) Approach, & OMT
    • Coach and provide resources to families so they can help your child overcome these mealtime obstacles
    • Use family participation during session
    • Work in your child’s natural environment
    • Utilize food from your kitchen

Virtual Feeding Therapy

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baby

  • Virtual Developmental Screening

    • Gross Motor Movement (Walking, Crawling, Balance, Leg and trunk strength)
    • Fine Motor Abilities
    • Communication
    • Social Emotional
    • How your child plays and moves
    • Visual Tracking
    • Hand/Eye Coordination
    • Sensory System
    • Feeding Development

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Teacher/Caregiver Presentations

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Girl refusing tomato

Feeding Fiasco

For some families, meal time can be the most challenging part of the day. Parenting a child who is having difficulty with eating can be tough for the entire family! Some kids are picky for a short time, or avoid only a few specific foods, and some kids may outgrow a food challenge. Some children maintain a difficult relationship with food for an extended period of time, seem to be regressing in skill, or make meal time a complete disaster with no end in sight. 

The Battle Field

When the preparation of food, the presentation of food, and/or the act of coming to the table is just the beginning of the mealtime battle, getting your child to eat nutritious and delicious food can be tough. If you are having to frequently pull out your sword and shield in preparation for a mealtime battle, it’s time to seek help from feeding therapists!

Too Tiny

If your child’s eating is impacting their growth, or your child is requiring supplements for weight or growth, our therapists can assist in food expansion strategies to enhance your child’s food intake and overall well being. 

  • Flee the Scene

Some children are overwhelmed by specific foods or the mealtime experience and will run away. Others require parents to strap them in, bribe them, pull out the tablet, or chase them down just to get to the table. If your child is having trouble coming to or staying at the table, feeding therapists can help make food more approachable, assist in attention enhancement, and provide strategies to remain at the table for the entire meal!

  • Tantrum Time 

When your dinner is thrown on the floor, smeared on the table, or screamed about in protest, your little one is struggling with food. Anxiety and frustration look different on each child, and tantrums can be one of the many responses to complex feelings food may be causing. Your therapist can help determine what abilities your child is struggling with that make the meal so difficult, and assist in developing skills to engage in meals and manage big emotions throughout the eating process.

  • The Picky Eater

A child is defined as being a “picky eater” when their food intake/variety is limited, but they are able to eat 30 or more food items. This number includes being able to eat the same food item prepared in a variety of ways! A picky eater may avoid an entire food group, or limit foods to a specific consistency or flavor. A feeding therapist can help picky eaters develop a meaningful relationship with their food and help the number and types of food accepted increase.

  • The Problem Feeder

A “problem feeder” is a child that eats 20 foods or less. This child may be brand specific in the foods they tolerate, they may have eliminated entire food groups, or they may avoid all foods that are a specific color, texture or consistency. Problem feeders may have underlying difficulty with oral motor or sensory processing skills resulting in gagging/vomiting, choking, coughing, or drooling. Our therapists are trained to assist in assessing the areas of challenge and increase the types of foods a child is eating to improve their nutritional intake and overall health/wellness.

  • Social Skills Suffer

Eating is a social activity. Families and friends sit down to share a meal, go out to eat meals together, bond over coffee dates, celebrate milestones with food, and more! If a child is having difficulty remaining at the table or tolerating being around others eating food, a feeding therapist can step in before social skills and meaningful events are impacted!

If your child falls into any of the above categories, bring your worries to BDI Playhouse feeding therapists! Set up a free consultation to get more information, and put your worries to rest!

Written by: Maggie Lord, MS, OTR/L

TURKEY TIME TROUBLES?

Turkey Time (as referred to by many of our kiddos) is just around the corner and it is either met with happy or anxious anticipation by children and adults!  A family member announces every Thanksgiving that this is her least favorite holiday because of how overwhelmed she feels with all the food options.  She says the anxiety starts weeks before the big day.  She has the ability to identify, process and express her anxiety related around a holiday.  Imagine, now, a child with the same feelings.  What might his or her anxiety look like?

Anxiety signs in kids:

  • Crying
  • Fleeing the table
  • Poor Sleep
  • Upset/outbursts more frequently or higher intensity than is typical
  • Irritability
  • Grimacing
  • Sweating
  • Yelling
  • Wide eyes
  • Gagging or vomiting
  • Decreased appetite
  • Tense or jittery body
  • Frequent urination

So, what can you do to help make this time less anxious for your child?

How you can help:

  • Take the pressure off! No need to focus on or force the idea of sitting down for a large meal with relatives!  Keep it casual for your kid
  • Validate feelings of discomfort around the holiday
  • Brainstorm food avoidance strategies for use at the Thanksgiving table with your child
  • Interact with Thanksgiving foods without eating them
  • Talk about it- set expectations and boundaries for the holiday festivities
  • Take breaks from the commotion 
  • Turn the focus- make the focus of the holiday less about the food and more about family, crafting/decorations, gratitude, whatever is important to your family!
  • Engage in calming strategies throughout the month.  Examples of calming strategies include heavy work, deep pressure, auditory supports, movement strategies, deep breathing/relaxation strategies, tactile bins, lighting adjustments, and visual toys.  These strategies can be used around meal time and outside of meal time.

Turkey time can be a successful holiday for your entire family, especially if you identify and prepare for the day ahead of time!  If you’d like additional resources, please set up a free screening with one of our occupational therapists at BDI playhouse!

Written by Maggie Lord MS, OTR/L, and Jessica Keenan, MA, CCC-SLP/L, CLC