Nutrition Interventions for Children with Special Health Care Needs

Section 2 - Problem-Based Nutrition Interventions
Table 9-3: Quick Behavior Intervention Plan Checklist for
Feeding Dysfunction
Have you defined the target behavior and the behavior you would rather see
instead?
Have you considered how often, when, where, and with whom the behavior does/
doesn’t occur most frequently?
Have you considered medical complications?
Have you attempted to reduce or eliminate the punishing aspects of the feeding
as much as possible through changes in position, medication, mealtime, volume,
taste, texture, and timing of tubed boluses?
Do you have a hypothesis about the goal of the behavior? Does your intervention
match all of your hypotheses?
Do you plan to teach and reinforce the replacement behavior with
developmentally appropriate strategies, which may include prompting, modeling,
mirroring, and/or representational play?
Do you know what the child really likes and is willing to work for?
Is the reinforcement plan appropriate? (intensity, duration etc.)
Are your reinforcers novel and powerful enough to compete with the reinforcer(s)
currently maintaining the misbehavior?
Does the child know how long the task will take?
Does the child know how many times s/he will have to repeat the task?
Do you avoid punishing good behavior through an increase in demands?
Do you wait 15 seconds for compliance?
Can you change the environment to reduce opportunities for misbehavior?
Are you providing choices, structure and routine to give the child appropriate
opportunities to exercise control?
Have you faded your supports and prompts gradually to ensure success?
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