Eating and drinking
Eating, drinking and swallowing needs are often referred to as Dysphagia. This describes eating and drinking difficulties in children. These could include:
- positioning food in the mouth
- sucking
- chewing
- moving the food around
- swallowing
Sometimes you may hear professionals talk about ‘aspiration’. Aspiration refers to either food, fluids, stomach contents and saliva entering the airways and lungs.
What you might notice if your child is finding eating and drinking difficult
- coughing, choking, spluttering or throat clearing
- facial colour changes (e.g. going pale, or reddening)
- rapid blinking or eyes watering
- wet or gurgly sounding voice
- other indications of distress or discomfort while eating or drinking, e.g. grimacing
What we can offer
Advice service
You can speak to one of our Speech and Language Therapists via our advice service. We can make suggestions about what might help and answer any questions you might have.
Our advice service is open every Thursday 9.30am to 12.30pm.
Tel: 01228 608177
Email: CumbriaCommmunicates@ncic.nhs.uk
If you need to make a Request for Support
Speech and Language Therapy are able to consider Requests for Support for children who have:
Obvious signs of difficulty in chewing and / or swallowing. This could include:
- difficulty in establishing oral feeding, possibly related to prematurity
- medical conditions or syndromes which are impacting on chewing and swallowing
- frequent chest infections alongside any of the above points
- continued difficulties with eating, drinking and swallowing where advice from other professionals has not helped
- choking
- coughing
- eyes watering
- colour change
- respiratory distress
- gurgly voice quality
Assessment by Speech and Language Therapy cannot be offered to children with:
- difficulties around weaning
Including food preferences which are behavioural and/or sensory
For example:
- poor appetite
- refusing solids
- spitting food out
- refusing lumps
- food refusal
- limited range of foods
- restricted diet
Information to include on a Request for Support
Anyone, including parents and carers, can request support from Speech and Language Therapy. You can do this via our Request for Support Form. If there are concerns regarding a child’s eating, drinking and swallowing it is preferred that the person requesting support has observed the child's eating and drinking.
It is extremely helpful to also include the following information:
- are there other professionals involved?
- medical history (e.g. any formal diagnosis, history of chest infections, respiratory status)
- medications
- any physical, visual or hearing impairments
- changes in eating and drinking
- how they take their foods and fluids
We have an additional Eating, Drinking and Swallowing Request for Support Form [WORD 71KB]. that can be used to capture this information. This can be attached and sent with the main Request for Support Form.
Assessment of the child’s eating and drinking may include:
- observation of a mealtime
- discussion with parents
- discussion with key adults in your child’s nursery / school
- recommendations will be shared verbally and in writing
If the assessment highlights a risk of aspiration, a request for further medical assessment, such as videofluoroscopy, is required. This is likely to mean a referral to larger hospital that has the facilities, for example Newcastle or Manchester.