Hallie BulkinAsk HallieAI:Your On-Demand Mentor in Pediatric Feeding & Myo

Episode 313: For The Love of Feeding with Cathy Stys, MA SLP, CPFT™, OMT

5 Apr 2025 · 1 min

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YouTube episode (Episode 313) in which host Hallie Bulkin (with guest Cathy Stys, MA SLP, CPFT™, OMT) discusses an integrated approach to pediatric feeding therapy. The excerpt emphasizes that feeding, speech therapy, airway management, and myofunctional treatment are interwoven rather than separable; uses a "peas" metaphor to describe layering interventions and highlights distinctions between upper and lower airway considerations, the role of chewing in triggering the swallow reflex, and the importance of nasal breathing.

Chapters

I can't separate. Okay. I don't have my own one box and feeding in another box and speech therapy in another box. You can't. You can't. It's a blend. And there's no way. Even from my other courses I've taken, you can't separate it. Yeah. And that's why I like to, like, when I talk about feed the peas, I'm like, it's peas. Pea feeding with a twist of tots and mayo. Because it's. It's basically just layering on more of what you're already doing and looking at it through another lens. And maybe you're working on airway in a different way. Maybe upper airway, where, like, we're always taught in pediatric feeding, like, the lower airway stuff and airway consideration so that food is not being aspirated to the lungs and other airway types of issues that maybe we don't treat directly, but we have to know about. Right. And then you come into the myo side, and it kind of brings in the upper airway, and you're like, oh, no One really explained to me, like, oh, everything that we're working on with chewing and. And triggering that initial swallow reflex and all that, you know? Well, yeah, that makes sense. I mean, we have to nasal breathe, right? Like, hello.