Eating and drinking difficulties

Eating and drinking difficulties

  • Difficulties with the physical act of swallowing food and/or drinks safely is known as dysphagia.
  • Sensory or behavioural difficulties affect a child's willingness or ability to engage with food, compared to dysphagia which is a difficulty with the physical act of swallowing safely.

Download our eating and drinking milestones leaflet: Eating and drinking typical milestones.pdf 168KB

Dysphagia

 Signs of dysphagia

  • Coughing or choking before swallowing.
  • Breathing difficulties when feeding.
  • Back-arching.
  • Gagging.
  • Loss of food or liquid from mouth during mealtime.
  • Difficulty chewing foods at age-appropriate level.
  • Noisy or wet vocal quality following eating.
  • Extended time required for meal times.

How can speech and language therapists help?

We often work with colleagues of different professions — for example, dieticians, occupational therapists, paediatricians and physiotherapists to:

  • Assess a child’s swallowing difficulties.
  • Improve safe swallow function.
  • Improve nutritional intake.
  • Provide tips for making mealtimes easier at home.
  • Implement feeding or swallowing techniques.
  • Develop treatment plans based on each individual child’s needs.

Please see our resources below to help children who have difficulties with their eating and drinking.

Eating and drinking downloads

Sensory feeding difficulties

Sensory feeding difficulties

Sensory or behavioural difficulties affect a child's willingness or ability to engage with food compared to dysphagia, which is a difficulty with the physical act of swallowing safely.

The video links below have been taken from: Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Children's Nutrition and Dietetics)

Information

Intervention

Support

Top Tips

Sensory feeding difficulties downloads

Useful links

 Useful websites