FOCUS Program for Mealtime Success: Intervention

  • Presenters: Lori Goodrich, OTR/L, C/NDT,
    Teresa May-Benson, ScD, OTR/L, FAOTA
  • Level: Advanced
  • Contact Hours: 6.5 contact hours, or 0.65 AOTA CEUs 
  • AOTA Areas: Occupational Therapy Service Delivery, Foundational Knowledge.
  • Audience: OT/OTAs

  • Completion Requirements: To earn contact hours or AOTA CEUs for this course participants must:

    • View this course in its entirety
    • Complete all home activities,
    • Successfully complete the accompanying course quiz
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Course overview

The FOCUS Program for Mealtime Success is designed to help individuals with sensory and motor challenges who have eating difficulties develop successful mealtime patterns through compassionate care, systematic assessment of all underlying issues, and whole-body intervention and treatment.

The FOCUS clinical reasoning process which guides the application of assessment information to intervention of feeding and mealtime difficulties in individuals with sensory processing challenges will be presented. Intervention and clinical reasoning for addressing various patterns of oral-motor and sensory processing challengees which impact feeding, eating and mealtime skills will be discussed. The six-phase FOCUS intervention model will be described and key decision making points will be presented. Intervention strategies for each phase of the model will be provided. The role of a multi-disciplinary team in addressing these difficulties will be discussed.

Core concepts of the assessment component of the FOCUS Program for Mealtime Success are presented in a companion course.

Learning Objectives

By the end of the course participants will be able to:

Implement a clinical reasoning framework for oral motor intervention

Identify the six intervention phases of the FOCUS intervention

Describe how the FOCUS program meets an individual client’s sensory motor, oral, eating and mealtime needs.

Agenda

  • Introduction to FOCUS and clinical patterns (1:10 mins)
  • Goals and outcomes and  preparing for intervention (2:20 mins)
  • Intervention phases 1 - 3 (2:10 mins)
  • Food interactions (1:30)
Lori Goodrich, OTR/L, C/NDT

Lori has extensive and specialized training related to sensory integration and oral motor theory, evaluation and treatment. For over 15 years she has worked with clients from toddlers to young adults to both evaluate and treat the underlying sensory and motor foundations that result in restrictive eating. Ms. Goodrich focuses on educating clients and their families to support their understanding of the cause of eating based challenges, as well as providing home base tools and strategies to support mealtime performance across environments. Ms. Goodrich is dedicated to ongoing collaboration with other professionals, including psychologists and nutritionists, in order to provide integrative care as well as to provide education regarding the impact that sensory and motor challenges have on a client’s food selectiveness.

Teresa May-Benson, ScD, OTR/L, FAOTA

Teresa is an expert occupational therapist renowned for her clinical research, mentoring and education related to related to sensory integration theory and intervention, praxis, and social competency. She is currently the owner/CEO of TMB Education, LLC and serves as President and practicing occupational therapist at OTR, Inc, a private occupational therapy practice specializing in sensory integration and social competency for children and adults across the lifespan, located near Philadelphia, PA. Dr. May-Benson has a diverse background as a clinical practitioner, having worked in private and public-school settings as well as private practice. She has authored numerous book chapters and articles on praxis and sensory integration and completed her doctoral dissertation on ideational praxis. Teresa is an education and research faculty member at the SPIRAL Foundation. In her role of educator, she currently serves as adjunct faculty at Widener University and is past faculty at Tufts University and the University of Indianapolis. She has received the Virginia Scardinia Award of Excellence for her work in ideational praxis and the A. Jean Ayres Award.

ADA/Section 504: If you require special accommodations, please contact courses@thespiralfoundation.org

Cancellation Policies: Available here

Continuing Education: Occupational Therapy Practitioners/ Occupational Therapy Assistants: SPIRAL Foundation is an Approved Provider of Continuing Education for occupational therapists and occupational therapy assistants by the American Occupational Therapy Association. The assignment of AOTA CEUs does not imply endorsement of specific course content, products, or clinical procedures by AOTA

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