Feeding/ARFID/Tube Presentation at the 2024 APS College of Clinical Psychologists Conference in Adelaide, 22 – 24 March 2024

Eating and drinking are vital, and next to breathing are the first and most important things we do in life. Paediatric feeding disorders are highly prevalent (more so than autism), and one of the most common issues raised in physician visits. Feeding problems impact almost all other areas of child functioning in life and development. Topographies of feeding issues (e.g., tube dependency, baby food dependency), how to identify and screen for feeding problems, diagnostic issues (e.g., ARFID or “picky/fussy” eating), misconceptions and non-evidence-based approaches (they’ll “eat when hungry” or “grow out of it”), multi-factorial causes (medical, skill, environmental), substantial impacts/risks of delaying effective treatment (health, skill/independence, social/behavioural), and interdisciplinary team roles and pretreatment clearance approval will be covered. Next, the only well-established, empirically-supported treatment for feeding with 50 years of evidence backing will be presented, including its origins, unique specialty training and competency requirements, methods of assessment (e.g., preference assessments, baseline observations), data collection methods and programmes, experimental designs and analysis (merging the gap between group and individual designs), goal selection and prioritising, progress monitoring, and intervention processes and comprehensive outcomes. Recent advances in multi-modal, multi-trait social validity assessment methods (i.e., consumer satisfaction, treatment acceptability, broader impact on quality of life, objective measures) including how to incorporate these methods into practice and potential for adaptation to other areas of application will be detailed. Finally, how this empirically-supported treatment has been translated from hospital programmes to homes in Australia via at least 7 detailed case examples including using child choice to inform treatment progression in skills and arrangements of response effort with layers of reinforcer parameters, teaching independence in medication/supplement acceptance and cup drinking, chewing, independent mealtime skills (from food pouch fading to using chopsticks), tube weaning, sibling/family meals, caregiver-training, and time-permitting, pica assessment/treatment will be shown.
This presentation will provide the audience a wealth of information on unique innovations in a highly specialised significant/interesting area, a multitude of resources (full text research articles/reviews, informational presentation videos, checklists and screening forms [e.g., physician’s clearance], tables [e.g., interdisciplinary team roles, progress monitoring/goal setting], parent/other discipline friendly handout with references, data collection methods) and case examples, and be interactive and include activities. However, given the complex/critical nature of the topic, risk, and competency required, it will not be a typical workshop or a “how to” as this cannot be taught in a day.