Feeding
Independent self-feeding is one of the important landmarks in the sensory development in childhood occupations in the end of first year. To gain this ability, a child needs to acquire somatosensory processing of information from the jaw, lip, and inside of the mouth that lead to an oral movement of chewing and swallowing of food. Self-feeding includes more than mouth movements, but also includes other sensory integrations such as taste and gustatory. The required sensory integration milestone to perform self-feeding involves eye-hand coordination, because …show more content…
The food selection may include small pieces of soft fruits (banana, strawberry, and blueberry with sweet syrup), small pieces of a muffin (whole wheat, apricot, blueberry, and oatmeal), scrambled egg, yogurt, tofu, or grounded turkey or chicken. After a certain period of exploration time, the occupational therapy would start feeding her, starting with the food that the she is interested in. The occupational therapist will encourage Jane to initiate self-feeding for the first time; however, the child only needs to move her hand a couple of inches to engage with the backward chaining of self-feeding. For the second step, the occupational therapist would provide less assistance with lifting the arm from the plate to the mouth. The final step would be the independent grasp and bringing the food to mouth with decreased