Trauma Informed Care: Picky Eaters and Challenging Mealtime Behaviors

September 12, 2023, 1:00 pm - 2:00 pm CT

For many families, meal time is the opportunity to spend time with one another. Food brings comfort, nutrition and love into a home. However, many children of various ages will experience difficulties with eating which may be multifactorial in nature (i.e. delayed development, sensory concerns, reduced oral motor skills, psychosocial factors). As a result, the child may act out at mealtime, refuse to eat foods offered at the table, and/or appear detached from the family unit during this activity. This presentation will provide a Trauma Informed lens to picky eating and challenging meal time behaviors. Often, challenging behaviors stem from other underlying causes that are not directly related to the food. Understanding the nature of these behaviors will assist family members, caregivers and professional staff to create a safe space for these children at meal time. 

Speaker

Nicole Scafura, M.S., CCC-SLP, Trauma Informed Professional, is an ASHA and NY state certified speech-language pathologist who earned her B.S. from the University of Rhode Island in 2016 and M.S. from New York Medical College in 2018. Since then, Nicole has worked in a variety of settings with the pediatric population including Early Intervention (0-3 years), inpatient rehabilitation, pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) and the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). Her specialty includes working with infants with difficulties feeding and medically fragile children with feeding and swallowing disorders. Regardless of the setting she sees her patients, Nicole uses Trauma Informed Care at the center of her goals. By combining her expertise in speech and feeding with trauma informed care, she can support the needs of both the children and families she works with to provide individualized, culturally appropriate and realistic treatment plans. 

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