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Assessment of Pediatric Feeding Disorders

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Handbook of Crisis Intervention and Developmental Disabilities

Part of the book series: Issues in Clinical Child Psychology ((ICCP))

Abstract

Feeding problems are common in all children but tend to occur more often in children with developmental disabilities. Feeding problems may range from eating no to minimal food by mouth, liquid dependency, and food selectivity. The etiology of a feeding disorder is multifaceted which involves the interaction between medical, physiological, and behavioral variables. In addition, children with feeding problems often engage in a variety of inappropriate mealtime behaviors to avoid eating. This chapter will provide a description of various feeding problems as well as a summary of the tools currently used to assess feeding problems in children including medical evaluation, assessment of oral and/or sensory motor deficits, swallowing evaluation, and behavioral assessment techniques to identify environmental variables contributing to the feeding problem.

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Correspondence to Meeta R. Patel Ph.D., BCBA-D .

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Patel, M.R. (2013). Assessment of Pediatric Feeding Disorders. In: Reed, D., DiGennaro Reed, F., Luiselli, J. (eds) Handbook of Crisis Intervention and Developmental Disabilities. Issues in Clinical Child Psychology. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6531-7_10

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