Nutrition Interventions for Children with Special Health Care Needs

Section 3 - Condition-Specific Nutrition Interventions
parents who may need help distinguishing between their own fears and anxieties
about food and their child’s nutritional needs.
Assessing PsychosociAl contributors
An initial assessment by the psychosocial professional is often key to other
interventions. It can allow parents to learn about their child’s needs and also
implement complex treatment plans consistently (7,8). Unfortunately, the
involvement of a psychosocial professional with experience in early age eating and
growth disorders is often viewed as the final intervention, sought only after all other
attempts have failed.
Families may need varying levels of support/therapy. Psychosocial professionals are
able to help parents separate their own struggles from their child’s needs and gain
confidence in their own ability to bring about change (7). For most families, change
is difficult to sustain. Emotional support provided by psychosocial professionals
provides parents with an opportunity to meet their own needs so they can better
meet their child’s needs.
Summary
FTT is a complex disorder related to multiple issues within a family system that
change over time. While the initial growth problem may be associated with factors
brought on by either or both the child and the parent, the continuing challenge
of a child’s food refusal and poor growth may act to maintain feeding and growth
problems over a long period of time. Once a feeding or growth problem is
suspected, practitioners are encouraged to refer for interdisciplinary assessment and
intervention in order to evaluate and treat effectively all factors influencing growth.
An interdisciplinary approach is critical even when a specialized team is not available.
Practitioners faced with this situation are encouraged to collaborate with experienced
providers in the community. In this way they can assess and prioritize treatment
goals as a team as well as evaluate progress over the course of treatment. It is
helpful to designate one provider as a primary contact person for both the family and
other team members in order to minimize confusion about the intervention.
The remainder of this chapter (Table 14-1) presents guidelines for nutrition
assessment, intervention, and evaluation/outcome for children with failure to thrive.
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