How Does a Feeding-Trained Speech Therapist Actually Help with “Picky Eating?”
A feeding-trained SLP can help your child develop their sensory, oral motor, and communication skills to help them overcome feeding challenges.
If you've ever sat through dinners when your child pushes food around the plate, gags at a new texture, or eats the same five foods on repeat, you probably already know that feeding struggles can go beyond just "picky eating." Issues with feeding often stem from something much different from being picky! Many feeding challenges are due to how a child's body, mouth, and nervous system are working together in response to food.
In short: A feeding therapist trained in the SOS Approach to feeding, myofunctional therapy, and JASPER addresses three different pieces of a child's feeding challenge at once, the sensory piece, the oral motor piece, and the engagement/communication piece all at once, instead of treating picky eating as a single problem with a single fix.
As a speech-language pathologist trained in feeding, myofunctional therapy, and autism-specific approaches, I look at feeding through a few different lenses at once. I thought it would be helpful to share how all of this may work together in practice!
Therapy focuses on reducing pressure rather than adding to it
A lot of families come to feeding therapy after trying (understandably!) the usual advice to bargain with their child, bribe them to eat, or enforce that the child may not leave until they eat food. While these stem from a good place (wanting your child to eat) these strategies often backfire, because they turn mealtime into a battle instead of a learning opportunity.
I use the SOS Approach to Feeding (Sequential Oral Sensory Approach), a step-by-step method that treats eating as a skill built through small, strategic, and tolerable steps. Instead of asking a child to eat a new food right away, SOS breaks the process into stages: tolerating a food on the plate, touching it, smelling it, kissing it, tasting it, and eventually eating it. The SOS Approach helps to keep children’s confidence high because step counts as progress.
This is important because pressure around food tends to increase anxiety and shut a child down further, so removing that pressure is often the first real breakthrough families see.
Next step: Look at what the mouth is doing!
Feeding isn't only sensory, it's motor too! A child who gags on textures, pockets food in their cheeks, or takes forever to finish a meal may be dealing with an oral motor challenge, not just a preference issue.
This is where myofunctional therapy comes in. Myofunctional therapy (I specifially am formally trained through the Academy of Oral and Myofunctional Therapy) looks at how the tongue, lips, cheeks, and jaw move and rest. This includes things like tongue posture, chewing patterns, and muscle tone. A child with low oral muscle tone or an atypical swallow pattern may genuinely struggle to manage certain textures, regardless of how motivated they are to eat them. Addressing the motor piece alongside the sensory piece gives kids the actual physical skills to succeed with new foods, not just the willingness to try.
Finally, for many kids, feeding is also about engagement, connection, and communication
Feeding challenges show up frequently, and are often more complex, in autistic and neurodivergent children. For these kids, feeding therapy that only focuses on food misses a big piece of the picture: engagement, trust, and communication during the process itself.
This is where I bring in strategies from JASPER (Joint Attention, Symbolic Play, Engagement, and Regulation), an evidence-based, UCLA-developed intervention originally designed for autistic children. JASPER isn't a feeding protocol on its own, but its core principles (following a child's lead, building shared engagement, and supporting regulation) translate directly to engaging children to have fun and build confidence during feeding therapy. A child who feels regulated, connected, and understood during a meal is in a much better position to tolerate a new food than a child who feels pressured or unseen.
For neurodivergent kids in particular, this combination matters: sensory-based feeding steps (SOS), oral motor support (myofunctional therapy), and relationship-based engagement strategies (JASPER) work so well together, rather than any one approach alone.
How does all of this come together?
In practice, a session might include:
Playful, low-pressure exposure to a new food using SOS steps
Oral motor exercises or cues to support chewing, tongue movement, or lip closure
Following the child's interests and play to build engagement before introducing anything food-related
Coaching for parents on how to carry these strategies into everyday meals, without turning every dinner into therapy
When a child's sensory needs, motor skills, and communication/engagement are all being supported at once, progress tends to be more sustainable, and mealtimes start to feel less like a fight and more like something the whole family can move through together!
Common questions about feeding therapy
What is the SOS Approach to feeding? SOS (Sequential Oral Sensory) is a step-by-step feeding therapy method that breaks eating down into smaller, tolerable steps, like tolerating, touching, smelling, and tasting a food, so kids build comfort with new foods gradually instead of being pressured to eat them right away.
What does myofunctional therapy have to do with feeding? Myofunctional therapy addresses how the tongue, lips, cheeks, and jaw move and rest. For kids with feeding challenges like gagging, food pocketing, or slow chewing, an underlying oral motor issue is often part of the picture, and myofunctional therapy targets that directly.
Is JASPER used in feeding therapy? JASPER was originally developed at UCLA for autistic children to build joint attention, play, and engagement. It's not a feeding-specific protocol, but its strategies for connection and regulation are often brought into feeding sessions for autistic or neurodivergent kids, where engagement during mealtime matters just as much as the food itself.
How do I find a feeding therapist in NYC trained in SOS, myofunctional therapy, and JASPER? This specific combination is uncommon. Look for a speech-language pathologist who lists all three trainings (SOS Approach to Feeding, AOMT myofunctional therapy certification, and JASPER) directly on their credentials or website, and ask during a consultation how they integrate the three in session. Nicole at Saltwater Speech is trained in SOS Approach to Feeding, AOMT myofunctional therapy certification, and JASPER, and is currently accepting new clients in Brooklyn and Manhattan.
Please note: if you're noticing feeding red flags in your child, like gagging, a limited food list, mealtime stress, or slow progress with feeding, a feeding-trained speech-language pathologist or occupatoinal therapist can help identify what's underneath it and build a plan that actually fits your child.