& all of your senses.

Many children with severe, complex and profound special educational needs may experience feeding challenges. This might be because of Dysphagia (physical difficulties that make it unsafe to swallow), because of physical, physiological or psychological challenges or because of sensory integration challenges which make it an unpleasant and difficult experience. For most children it is a complex combination of multiple factors that requires assessment from a multi-disciplinary team in order to understand.

Whenever offering food related play, please ensure that you discuss it with the child’s dysphagia trained Speech and Language Therapist to make sure that it is safe for a child to do so and take into account any dietary requirements.

Sensory Integration.

Feeding is one of the most complex things that we require our body to do because it involves the integration of information from every sensory system - and there are 8! Sensory Integration develops through experiences. If we are not effectively or efficiently receiving, perceiving and interpreting sensory information about our body and our environment, we may have difficulty learning and developing new skills and participating in every day activities such as feeding.

Below, we describe how children might respond at snack and mealtimes if they are experiencing challenges in each of the sensory systems. This is not an exhaustive list and if you are concerned about a child’s feeding then we recommend that you request an assessment with a feeding specialist trained in Ayres Sensory Integration.

FACT:

The gustatory system is our sense of taste. Sensory receptor cells on our tongue tell us if a food is sweet, salty, sour, bitter or savoury. The olfactory system is our sense of smell which gives us information about the flavour of food and why we might say things like “it smells so good I can taste it”. Due to the physiology of the nasal and oral cavity, as we chew food, our experience of taste and flavour can change.

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Teaching & Learning.

Making sure that all pupils have the opportunity to learn in a playful and multi-sensory environment will support the development of their sensory integration and skills needed for more enjoyable feeding experiences. The Springboard Curriculum describes how playful and multi-sensory learning supports pupils to develop skills in all core curriculum areas.

If you recognise that a pupil in your class might be experiencing feeding difficulties because of differences in their sensory processing, join Louisa Hargett (OT) @sensorychildren & I (SLT) with our online course “Fussy Eating - What everyone needs to know (part 1)” or talk to an Occupational Therapist, Speech and Language Therapist or Specialist Feeding Therapist trained in Ayres Sensory Integration.

If you are enjoying our content, The Springboard Curriculum is available to buy here as an immediate digital download. You can follow the link to view sample pages before you buy. The reason we decided to share our work? To allow educators to use their time creatively to maximise play and tailor the learning activities to the strengths and challenges of each pupil.

£1 of every sale goes to the school’s charity to give back to the educators and pupils who inspired the curriculum.