As professionals, when diagnosing young children with an Autistic Spectrum Condition, it is vital we work as a multi-disciplinary team, so you will likely see many professionals. This may include Educational Psychologist, Dietician, General Practitioner, Occupational Therapist, Paediatrician, Special Educational Needs Coordinator, Speech and Language Therapist and Social worker. Once the evidence is collated, then a diagnosis may be made.
You may be wondering what are some of the early signs of social communication difficulties? Whilst no autistic child is the same and we know Autism is very much a very wide spectrum of abilities and needs there are some autistic spectrum characteristics we do typically see in the early years of childhood. You may wish to think about these areas or presentations to help you prepare for the Speech and Language Therapy appointment.
Twelve questions
Does your child respond to their name?
Are they fixated with watching their hands?
Do they have sensory processing difficulties such as bright lights, food textures, or loud noises?
Are they meeting their milestones or are they delayed?
Do they flap their arms or legs when excited?
Have you noticed any rocking back and forth?
Do they blink excessively or display any facial tics?
Do they play with a particular sort of toy e.g. spinning toys?
Have you noticed that they lack interest in toys?
Have they regressed in their language? Perhaps you’ve noticed they are not using words that they have previously learnt.
Do they use gestures to communicate their needs? How do they communicate their wants and needs?
Do they appear to be in their own world?
You are not alone
These questions are by no means exhaustive and there are many more factors to consider. But it is important to trust your instincts as you are the expert on your child and know your child the best. Regardless of whether you see all of the above points or none, do not hesitate to have an assessment if you are concerned as, even if it turns out to be nothing to worry about, there is always at least one or two great pieces of advice I can offer you on the way and you will leave feeling hopeful and empowered. It’s always best to seek early intervention with communication difficulties. This allows strategies and support to be put in place. Never feel alone, always speak out.
Find a speech and language therapist for your child in London. Are you concerned about your child’s speech, feeding or communication skills and don’t know where to turn? Please contact me and we can discuss how I can help you or visit my services page.
The practice of wrapping or swaddling children, often referred to as ‘containment,’ has been used for centuries to soothe and comfort infants. I use this therapeutic approach with autistic children at the London Speech and Feeding Practice. While it might seem counterintuitive, the act of being tightly wrapped can provide significant benefits for children who struggle with sensory processing, emotional regulation, and communication.
Understanding sensory processing and autism
Autistic persons often experience challenges with sensory processing, which is their brain’s ability to interpret and respond to sensory information. This can lead to sensory overload or under-responsivity. Containment can be a valuable tool in helping children regulate their sensory input.
To summarise, here are some of the benefits of containment:
Sensory Regulation:
Provides deep pressure input: The tight, enveloping sensation of being wrapped can provide deep pressure input, which is calming and organising for many children.
Reduces sensory overload: By creating a controlled sensory environment, containment can help to reduce overstimulation and promote a sense of safety.
Emotional Regulation:
Containment creates a sense of security: Being wrapped tightly can mimic the feeling of being in the womb, providing a sense of security and comfort.
Facilitates calming: The deep pressure input can help to calm the nervous system and reduce anxiety.
Improved Body Awareness:
Enhances proprioception: Containment can improve the child’s awareness of their body in space, which is essential for motor development and sensory integration. I often provide extra pressure on a child’s arms and legs sticking out of the yoga mat; this helps my child understand where their limbs are in space: I can feel my legs and I can feel my arms and I can feel where they are right now, i.e. they are under Sonja’s hand, I can feel them.
Facilitates Communication – and this is obviously where I come in as a Speech and Language Therapist:
Swaddling creates a safe space: When a child feels calm and secure, they are more likely to engage in communication.
Enhances joint attention: The shared experience of being wrapped can foster joint attention, which is essential for language development. You can see this one in my highlights where I swaddle my student in the yoga mat (picture above). She absolutely loves it, and what is more she is calm and steady when usually this child likes to be on the move constantly. Here we have a wonderful moment of joint engagement. She looks at me, she can listen to what I say or sing, and she can tell me in her own way to carry on rolling her or to carry on singing or providing calming pressure to her legs and arms or to stop.
A few pointers for when you try this at home: How to practise containment safely and effectively
Create a safe environment: Ensure the wrapping material is soft, breathable, and free from any hazards.
Observe your child’s cues: Pay attention to your child’s body language and verbal cues to determine their comfort level.
Respect your child’s boundaries: If your child shows signs of distress, stop the containment immediately – this might seem obvious but sometimes we adults get so carried away with some ‘great idea’ that we have seen work elsewhere. And so we can be a little too ‘determined’ sometimes to ‘make it happen’… perhaps this rings a bell with some of my readers.
MAKE IT FUN: Start carefully and take it step by step. See if the student is having a nice time. It is all about trust and therefore it might not work the very first time you do it.
It’s important to remember that containment is not a one-size-fits-all approach. Some children may respond better to other sensory-based interventions. However, for many autistic children containment can be a valuable tool in their journey towards improved communication and emotional regulation.
Feeding and Dysphagia (Swallowing) Specialist The London Speech and Feeding Practice
The London Speech and Feeding Practice
Find a speech and language therapist for your child in London. Are you concerned about your child’s speech, feeding or communication skills and don’t know where to turn? Please contact me and we can discuss how I can help you or visit my services page.
One of the most common concerns parents bring to speech and language therapy is: ‘My child understands so much… but they struggle to put sentences together’.
Some children use only single words. Others miss out key parts of sentences. Some mix up word order. Others find it difficult to answer questions or explain their ideas clearly.
This is where one of my favourite therapy approaches can be incredibly powerful: Colourful Semantics.
Colourful Semantics is a highly effective and evidence-informed way of supporting children to build stronger sentence structure, grammar, understanding, and expressive language skills.
It is a visual approach to language development originally created by a UK Speech and Language Therapist, Alyson Bryan in 1997 to help children understand how sentences are organised.
Different parts of a sentence are represented by different colours.
For example:
Who? is orange.
What doing? is yellow.
What? is green.
Where? is blue.
As children progress more colours are added:
To Whom? Is pink.
Adjectives (what like) is purple.
Time Phrase is brown.
Using colours gives children a visual framework for building sentences in a way that feels structured, predictable, and achievable.
Instead of language feeling abstract and overwhelming, children can see how sentences fit together.
For many children, this is massively helpful as it gives structure and predictability.
Why some children struggle with sentences
Language development is incredibly complex.
To build a sentence, we need to:
think of vocabulary
organise grammar
sequence words
understand meaning
remember sentence structure
physically say the words clearly enough to communicate
That is a huge amount happening all at once.
Some children may:
leave out verbs
miss pronouns
use immature grammar
struggle with word order
rely on very short phrases
find it difficult to expand beyond single words.
For example:
‘Boy jump’
‘Him eating’
‘Dog there’
‘Want juice’.
These children often know more than they can express.
Colourful Semantics helps bridge that gap.
Why visual supports matter
Many children—especially those with language delays, developmental language disorder (DLD), autism, or social communication difficulties—benefit enormously from visual support.
Visual systems reduce the processing load.
Instead of relying only on spoken language, children are given an additional way to organise information.
The colours act almost like ‘anchors’ for language.
A child may begin to understand:
orange = who
yellow = action
green = object
blue = place.
This makes sentence building more concrete and less overwhelming.
It also supports children who struggle with:
attention
auditory memory
processing spoken language
sequencing
confidence using language independently.
Supporting sentence expansion naturally
One of the things I love most about Colourful Semantics is how flexible it is.
It can be used:
in play
with books
during conversation
with picture scenes
in storytelling
during movement activities
within everyday routines.
Therapy does not need to feel rigid or worksheet-heavy.
Many children who usually avoid talking become much more willing to attempt longer sentences when they feel successful.
Children often begin to use:
verbs more accurately
pronouns more consistently
better word order
improved sentence organisation
and more complete ideas.
For example, instead of:
‘Him running’
A child may gradually move toward:
‘He is running.’
The colours help children understand the ‘jobs’ words have within a sentence.
This is particularly useful for children who need explicit teaching of language structure rather than simply learning through exposure alone.
Supporting children with speech difficulties too
One thing I particularly value in therapy is approaches that support multiple communication areas at once.
Colourful Semantics is excellent for this.
While building sentences, we can also naturally target:
speech sounds
intelligibility
vocabulary
social communication
turn-taking
attention and listening
confidence speaking.
For example, if a child is working on the /K/ sound, we might intentionally build sentences containing target words:
‘The cat is coming.’
‘The boy is kicking.’
‘The duck is in the box.’
This allows speech and language goals to work together rather than separately.
Therapy becomes more functional, meaningful, and engaging.
Building confidence through success
One of the biggest barriers many children experience is not simply language difficulty. It is the emotional impact of struggling to communicate.
Some children become frustrated. Others withdraw. Some stop attempting longer sentences altogether because communication feels too hard.
Colourful Semantics can help rebuild confidence because it gives children a clear structure for success. That feeling matters enormously.
When children feel successful, they participate more. They attempt more. They communicate more.
And communication grows through communication.
Why I use colourful semantics
There is no single ‘magic’ therapy approach for every child.
But Colourful Semantics remains one of the most versatile and effective tools I use because it can be adapted so beautifully to individual children.
It supports:
early language
grammar
sentence structure
comprehension
expressive language
storytelling
confidence
functional communication.
Most importantly, it helps children organise language in a way that finally starts to make sense to them.
And when language starts to make sense, communication can truly begin to flourish.
Bryan A (1997) Colourful semantics. In: Chiat S, Law J, and Marshall J (eds) Language disorders in children and adults: psycholinguistic approaches to therapy. London: Whurr, 143–61.
Find a speech and language therapist for your child in London. Are you concerned about your child’s speech, feeding or communication skills and don’t know where to turn? Please contact me and we can discuss how I can help you or visit my services page.
What is Speech and Language Therapy (SLT) and what does a Speech Therapist do?
Speech and language therapists provide treatment, support and care for children and adults who have difficulties with communication, eating, drinking and swallowing. We help children and adults who have problems speaking and communicating.
How to find the perfect therapist for my child/client:
There are a huge number of speech and language difficulties, or feeding and swallowing problems that we can help with and the first thing to think about is what age group the person is you are seeking help for. Most SLT’s specialise in a range of disorders and treatments and they often treat specific age ranges. This could be, for instance, very young children up to 3 years, or school aged children, adolescents or just adults. Once you have narrowed it down to age and general area of difficulty you can then go and seek your perfect SLT match.
Generally it is my view that SLT’s with a narrow area of specialist interest are most likely to help you better if the problem you or your child/adult is having is significant and/or profound. For example, if your child has a very severe stutter/stammer but is otherwise developing fine and has good skills all round, then I would recommend to look for an SLT who only specialises in stammering/stuttering, or has only a small range of other specialist areas related to stammering , such as speech and language delay.
The reason is that it is a tall order for any professional to stay up to date with latest research, latest clinical developments and training for more than, say, five distinct areas of interest.
However, a more generalist Speech therapist who has lots of experience in many different areas could be a very good option for your child or adult who has more general speech and language delay in a number of areas, perhaps a global delay or a syndrome which means that their learning is delayed in general. It also means that your child might benefit from a Generalist SLT because they have many more tools in their SLT bag and your child might need a variety of approaches for several areas.
A good place to start is www.asltip.com which is the Association for Independent Speech and Language Therapists in the UK. Any SLT registered with ASLTIP will also be registered with the HCPC (Health Care Professionals Council), as well as RCSLT (Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists). These two important UK professional regulatory bodies ensure all its members are fully qualified, and are fully up to date with latest developments within their areas of work.
Here you can enter your post code and look for a therapist near you and you can look for specific problems such as stammering for example and narrow down your search. Most therapists have a website which you can then access too. I would recommend you speak to a few therapists on your list and then go with the person you had the best rapport with. You and the therapist will be spending a lot of time together and you will need to feel that you trust them and that you can relax into the process.
How I can help you:
I have 3 main areas of specialism:
Parent Child Interaction Coaching
This is an amazing way to help children with the following difficulties:
Social Communication Difficulties, Autistic Spectrum Disordersand
Speech and Language Delay – for children under the age of 4 years old, this is my preferred way of working because it is so very effective and proven to work. If your child is not developing words or not interacting, has reduced attention and listening and you feel is not progressing or, in fact even regressing, then this way of working is the best. For anyone wanting to read a bit more about the efficacy of this method, below are some research articles. You may also like to check out www.hanen.org which is the mainstay of my work and method when it comes to Parent-Interaction Coaching. You can also look at my latest blog, entitled: Tele-therapy, does it work?
In brief, what’s so great about Parent Coaching is that it empowers you the parent to help your child in daily life! This is where speech, language and social communication develop typically, in a naturalistic way and environment. Simple steps and strategies are discussed and demonstrated every week and you are encouraged to use these strategies with your child in daily routines: getting dressed, having breakfast, on the school run, whilst out in the park or shopping or simply playing at home or having dinner or bath time. Whatever your family routine happens to be, every strategy I teach you will help create a responsive communication environment; generally, if your child is able to develop speech then they will do so in direct response to your changed interaction style.
Speech Sound Disorders, Verbal Dyspraxia, Phonology and Articulation
I love working with children of all ages on developing their speech sounds. Whether your child has a lisp, or a couple of tricky sounds they simply cannot produce quite right, or perhaps your child is really unintelligible because he/she is having lots of different sound errors, making it really hard to understand them. I typically work on getting “most bang for your buck” , meaning I address the sounds that cause the most problems and, therefore, when they are fixed your child/person’s speech becomes that much clearer fairly quickly.
Feeding and Swallowing Difficulties
Having worked for over 20 years in NHS Child Development Clinics and Special Needs Schools I trained and worked with feeding and swallowing difficulties early on in my SLT career. I later trained as a Lactation Consultant and so I am well placed helping and support all types of Infant feeding, both breast or bottle, as well as toddler weaning. I aim to ensure that your little one swallows the right kind of foods and drinks for their abilities. I am experienced in managing and supporting children with physical needs and mobility problems, Cerebral Palsy, Down Syndrome or any other type of syndrome or presentation.
What does a speech therapy session look like?
All sessions differ slightly depending on the age of the child and the nature of the difficulties.
However, mostly our sessions look like FUN! After arrival and washing hands we tend to start off with the tricky work straight away whilst our child still has energy and the will to engage. So, for speech work we will focus on the target sounds first: this could be sitting at a table doing work sheets together, playing games using the target sound and really any type of activity that gives us around 70-100 repeats of the target pattern. For example, a child who is working towards saying a ‘K’ at the end of the word I will try and get around 100 productions of words like: pack/sack/lick/ pick/bike/lake and so on.
Then we often play a fun game where I might try for a ‘rhyming’ activity or other sound awareness type activities, for perhaps 10 minutes and within that time I aim to trial the next sound pattern we need to improve on; I will test which sound your child can do with help from me. During he last 10 minutes we might look at a book, again listening to and producing whatever sound we are working on. If I did not get 100 sounds earlier on in the session I will try and practice them now as part of the story. In total I aim to have about 40-45 minutes of activities, all aimed at the target sound we are working on.
What does a Coaching session look like?
During a Parent Coaching Session we meet online for about an hour and we discuss how the week has been for you trying out the strategies. Typically parents start off recalling what went well, what progress was made and what had been more tricky. We work through it all, and then follow on to the next strategies: I will show you examples and demonstrations of each strategy and I will get you to think about how you can use this with your child and in what situation you might use it. I will explain what we are doing and what the purpose is. You might want to write down what you are going to work on for the week. Over the course of about sessions we can cover all the major strategies that are proven to help kickstart spoken language and/or help your child to connect more with you. Through that connection spoken words most often develop.
Research Papers on the Efficacy of Parent Child Interaction Coaching
The It Takes Two to Talk Program has been shown to be effective in changing how parents interact with their children, and that children’s communication and language skills improve as a result.
Baumwell, L.B., Tamis-LeMonda, C.S. & Bornstein, M.H. (1997). Maternal verbal sensitivity and child language comprehension. Infant Behavior and Development, 20(2), 247-258.
Beckwith, L. & Cohen, S.E. (1989). Maternal responsiveness with preterm infants and later competency. In M.H. Bornstein (Ed.). Maternal responsiveness: Characteristics and consequences: New directions for child development (pp. 75-87). San Francisco: Jossey Bass.
Bronfenbrenner, U. (1974). Is early intervention effective? (Publication No. (CDH) 74-25). Washington, DC: Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, Office of Child Development.
Girolametto, L. (1988). Improving the social-conversational skills of developmentally delayed children: An intervention study. Journal of Speech and Hearing Disorders, 53, 156-167.
Sonja has been a real help for my 5 year old daughter. Due to her support, my daughter is now able to clearly and correctly enunciate ‘th’ ‘f’ and ’s’. She was also helpful in making positional changes to her seating to help her concentrate better and kept her engaged throughout all the lessons which is a feat in itself on zoom!
Helen, Mother of Catherine Age 5.
Find a speech and language therapist for your child in London. Are you concerned about your child’s speech, feeding or communication skills and don’t know where to turn? Please contact me and we can discuss how I can help you or visit my services page.
Why is joint engagement important for communication development?
It has been well-documented that the development of joint attention is impaired in children who have social communication difficulties or autism. It is, in fact, this impairment which distinguishes children with ASD from children who have other developmental delays.
A lack of joint attention in very young children is an early sign of autism as it is a signal that there is a disruption in the motivation to connect socially with others. Since this is a crucial element, I thought I would outline what we mean by Joint Attention as supported by the research undertaken at Hanen.org.
In typically developing children, the ability to shift attention between a person and an object for the purposes of connecting socially or for requesting develops around the same time. However, for children with ASD, these components emerge one at a time and in a linear fashion. Children with ASD usually start with requesting something and later they may learn to share attention for social sharing. (see pattern below as a general guide).
As with typical development, there is variation in the order that these skills emerge but the following patterns of development is commonly seen:
Reaching, taking adult’s arm/hand or pointing to ask for something — but without looking at the adult
Gradually alternating looking between person and object of desire
Then learning to follow the point of another — which is responding to joint attention initiated by another
Directing attention to share interests — without looking at the adult: pointing to a truck on the road/ helicopter circling above
Then directing attention to share interest by alternating gaze shift between person and object — here the child is now initiating joint attention.
What is important to note is that in order to fulfil the criteria for true joint attention, the purpose of directing the attention of another person must be social in nature. In other words, it must not be exclusively to obtain a desirable object or event/action. True Joint Attention is seen verbally or non-verbally; we want to share a thought with another person and direct them to something we are interested or excited or spooked by.
For example: we can see an amazing firework display in the distance and we want to quickly direct our friend’s attention to this. In order to do this we might be tugging their sleeve/arm whilst pointing to the display in the distance, and perhaps we might add “wow look over there!” We are doing so simply to share an interest without obtaining anything, we are just being social with each other. So True Joint Attention is not just looking at what we want to have, then look at the person who can get this for us and then point to the item. We can say that this is the precursor to true joint attention, which is purely social in nature.
Because true joint attention is an essential precursor to typical language development, the absence of joint attention in children with ASD contributes to difficulties with language learning. Beuker, K., Rommelse, N., Donders, R. & Buitelaar, J. (2013).
The Hanen programme for Parent Child Interaction teaches parents of children with Social Communication Difficulties step by step how to enable their children to learn to pay attention to an object and the parent at the same time.
We learn how to enable a child to:
engage take turns
shift eye gaze between toy and adult
copy adult’s actions, gestures and then words
play with toys in different, new ways
interact and for longer periods of time
have fun whilst playing
If you would like to know more about the Hanen programme please get in touch. I look forward to exploring the topic with you and help guide you forward if this is something your child is struggling with.
Find a speech and language therapist for your child in London. Are you concerned about your child’s speech, feeding or communication skills and don’t know where to turn? Please contact me and we can discuss how I can help you or visit my services page.
Last time we asked: is our child ready tp move to Stage 2 NLA (Natural Language Acquisition stage 2) and we looked at how we can know. Now we know: he/she is ready, they are mixing and matching those scripts quite liberally! Hurrah!
So for example we hear phrases like:
‘let’s go’+ ‘downstairs’
‘it’s’ + ‘downstairs’
‘I see it’ + ‘downstairs‘
‘I want to’ + ‘shoes downstairs’ (I want to put my shoes on downstairs)
To recap, it’s important to listen out to a variety of contexts because if we only hear the single version of a gestalt —this is so great, hurrah!— but that’s not yet Stage 2.
What we can now do on a daily basis to help and support at this time:
1. We need to offer more ‘mix and match’ phrases to help our child establish this new way of communicating.
How’bout … some food / playing / I’ll chase / sleeping / we read a book
I see a … bird / large car / fire engine
I wanna … have a biscuit / have a book / have a snuggle
We’re … going out / going home / going in the car / going upstairs
Here in my video clip of train play I use:
Let’s go
It’s going up the hill
It’s coming down
Ooops it falls!
It’s stopping
Let’s put on another parcel
Ready steady go
Off we go
It’s come off!
Let’s fix it
I can do it
I don’t need help
You can offer these gestalts either with an AAC as you can see me do in the video clip or you can just verbally offer these.
2. Watch out for Pronoun confusion or reversal:
Gestalt kids repeat gestalts, so we don’t want to create ‘pronoun reversal’.
Instead model from a:
first person perspective: ‘I’ / ‘Our’ / ‘Us’
joint perspective: ‘We’ / ‘Let’s’ or a
neutral perspective: ‘It’
You can turn almost any sentence into a good language model once you get used to it. And you can avoid ‘you’ and ‘your’ at the same time!
So instead of saying, ‘Do you want to go to the park?’
You could say:
We wanna go to the park?
Let’s go out?
Shall we go out / to the park?
3. Start providing ‘variation’ in your language modelling:
Instead of just modelling something one way, start thinking about offering a pattern in a couple of other ways, in a couple of different situations, then several ways in several different situations.
Example: once you hear your child saying: ‘it’s raining’ and you know it’s a mitigation, because you don’t often say ‘it’s raining’, or haven’t said it in a while and you know your child says other ‘it’s’ phrases.
4. Use natural intonation that shows you really mean what you’re saying.
You can be animated or try for musical if your child prefers that / doesn’t mind you singing —they might not like it if their hearing is pitch perfect and your singing is off key…—
‘I’m’ + ‘trying to find you!’ (animated, goofy face)
‘I’m’ +’ getting tired!’ (exaggerated stretch and yawn)
‘I’m’ + ‘catching up with you!’ (animated goofy)
‘I’m’ + ‘gonna get you!’ (animated goofy)
‘I’m’ + ‘sad right now’ (exaggerated face and tone of voice)
5. USE SILENCE!
Important, I might not have said this before but we need to hold back sometimes (hard I know) and not constantly offer models. Let our child sit in a bit of silence with us there just observing and waiting for their own offers. This is a very important point. Silence is golden sometimes. Try it out. I am not talking about the silence that comes with a person scrolling on their phone though, we do need to be present and receptive.
You will see this works wonders!
Do get in touch if you would like some in-person or on-line 1:1 support with this. It can be overwhelming to figure it all out alone.
Find a speech and language therapist for your child in London. Are you concerned about your child’s speech, feeding or communication skills and don’t know where to turn? Please contact me and we can discuss how I can help you or visit my services page.
Feeding therapy is a specialised form of therapy and support that helps children develop healthy eating habits and overcome challenges related to food. It’s often used for children with picky eating, feeding disorders, or sensory processing issues.
What is feeding therapy?
Feeding therapy involves a series of techniques designed to improve a child’s eating skills and attitudes towards food. In the UK it’s typically provided by speech and language therapists and dietitians. These professionals work closely with parents and caregivers to create a personalised treatment plan tailored to each child’s unique needs.
How does feeding therapy work?
Feeding therapy sessions are typically 30–60 minutes long and involve a variety of techniques, including:
Family counselling: Providing support and guidance to parents and caregivers. This can help address any practical, behavioural and emotional issues that may be impacting the child’s eating.
Play-based activities: Engaging children in fun activities while introducing new foods or textures. This can help alleviate anxiety and make mealtimes more enjoyable.
Sensory exploration: Helping children become more comfortable with different tastes, smells, and textures. This can be achieved through activities like touching, smelling, and tasting various foods.
Oral motor exercises: Improving chewing, swallowing, and lip coordination. These exercises can help children develop the necessary skills for eating independently.
Behavioural techniques: Using positive reinforcement to encourage healthy eating habits. This can involve rewarding children for trying new foods or eating a variety of meals.
When is feeding therapy needed?
Feeding therapy may be beneficial for children who:
Are picky eaters: Refuse to eat a variety of foods or have strong preferences.
Have feeding disorders: Experience difficulties with eating, such as swallowing or chewing.
Have sensory processing issues: Are sensitive to certain textures, smells, or tastes.
Have medical conditions: Such as autism, cerebral palsy, or gastrointestinal disorders.
Feeding therapy strategies you can try at home
While professional feeding therapy can be invaluable, there are several techniques you can try at home to support your child’s eating development:
Create a positive mealtime environment: Make mealtimes enjoyable and stress-free by avoiding distractions, limiting screen time, and creating a calm atmosphere.
Create regular mealtimes and mealtime routines: Introduce set ways of announcing meal times, including songs or short nursery rhymes, try and involve your child with table setting, even just carrying their spoon to the table and putting the beaker next to the plate and ensure that meal time finishes after about 30 minutes, again with a set routine so that the child always knows: this is how we do it in our home, now I am finished and meal time is over.
Introduce new foods gradually: Start with small amounts and gradually increase exposure. This can help reduce anxiety and make new foods less overwhelming.
Model healthy eating: Show your child how to enjoy a variety of foods by eating a balanced diet yourself.
Avoid forcing food: Allow your child to choose and explore foods at their own pace. Forcing them to eat can create negative associations with food.
Seek professional help
If you’re concerned about your child’s eating habits, consult with a feeding therapist. We can provide guidance and support.
Remember, feeding therapy is a collaborative process between parents, caregivers, and professionals. With patience, understanding, and the right strategies, you can help your child develop healthy eating habits and enjoy meals.
Would you like to know more about specific techniques or have any other questions about feeding therapy?
Feeding and Dysphagia (Swallowing) Specialist The London Speech and Feeding Practice
The London Speech and Feeding Practice
Find a speech and language therapist for your child in London. Are you concerned about your child’s speech, feeding or communication skills and don’t know where to turn? Please contact me and we can discuss how I can help you or visit my services page.
