How Pediatric Feeding Changed in 2025—and What It Means for Clinicians

But here's the thing. The new question isn't like, should I learn myo? It's how soon and how can I integrate it into my feeding practice? If you've been in pediatric feeding for any length of time, you've probably noticed things are shifting fast. From new research on oral function and airway development to the growing emphasis on collaboration across disciplines, which I think I've been preaching for the past five years. 2025 has been a huge year of evolution for our field, and so today we're unpacking what actually changed in feeding therapy this year and what it means for the way we'll practice in 2026. Let's dive in.

Welcome to the Untethered Podcast. I am your host, Hallie Balkan. I'm a certified myofunctional therapist, feeding specialist, podcaster, business owner and mentor. This podcast is all about getting your questions answered and collaborating with colleagues to bring you the most up to date information in the orof myofunctional therapy, airway tether, dural tissue and pediatric feeding therapy space. If you're new here, I challenge you to keep an open mind and join my mission to spread this message far and wide. If you've been around since June 2019, thanks for being a loyal listener. As we jump into today's episode, remember to listen with correct oral rest. Posture, tongue up, lips closed, teeth apart.

Breathe through your nose.

Let's get started.

Let's start with what the latest research and clinical trends are showing. Okay. And how they're reshaping our work as feeding therapists. So there's probably, let's see, five different areas I want to go over. And the first one is Oral function became the foundation. 2025 has become the year of or became the year of function. First thinking, right? The best clinicians are no longer treating symptoms or identifying root causes in tongue mobility, in jaw stability and oral motor coordination. Research highlighted this year how oral function impacts not just feeding, but we now are seeing what we've already known. But now it's published. Right? It impacts speech, airway development, and even sleep. And more professionals are learning to screen for tethered oral tissues and oral facial dysfunction as part of a full functional assessment. Yay. That excites me. So even if asha, our national organization, cannot seem to bring forward our talks and presentations on topics like myofunctional therapy, we still, as a collective whole, have really made a lot of strides this year with bringing oral function forward as a foundation. Having a lot. I've seen so many more conversations around that so, yay. Number two, the feeding pyramid, right? That got a redesign. So we've moved from like working on like isolated skills like spoon or cup drills to like full system integration. Okay. And yeah, we still obviously address those things, but 2025 really solidified that stability drives mobility, meaning we can't separate the trunk from the jaw from the tongue. Right. The function of all these systems, these areas from our overall posture and breathing. And so functional feeding approaches now prioritize regulation leading to, you know, posture to respiration, to oral motor control of feed with the focus really, you know, building efficient movers, not compensators, if you will. Because if you know anything about me, I don't believe in teaching compensation. I believe in undoing compensation so that we can get fully functional or function to the best of our ability. Now, I'm not saying if a child needs to compensate or that's what a parent chooses for their kid, that's fine. No judgment passed. However, I don't believe that as clinicians, as professionals, we should be promoting the education of compensations as our, like, top of the line, you know, therapy. We implement like how that makes absolutely no sense. And I know I'm going to offend some people and ruffle, ruffle some feathers with that, but please do better. Okay. Number three, collaboration became the expectation for many. I know it's not for everybody yet, but it's. And it's maybe not happening everywhere, but 2025, normalized collaboration across feeding and myo and airway and bodywork disciplines. And so I'm seeing pediatric feeding therapists working hand in hand with more ENTs, more dentists, orthodontists, lactation consultants, PTs, OTs for more integrated care. And this is where I'm really happy and excited to see the future of medicine continue to move. The era of like one provider does all or fixes all that is over. Families now are educated. Families became very educated in the past couple years, but especially this year. And now they expect 18 team based approach that looks at the whole system. So parents listening. Yay. I applaud you. Please continue to push for that, that collaborative approach and you know, function right, get rid of the compensations, drive fully functioning systems, figuring out root cause. We can get everybody functioning and working together as a collaborative team in order to get to that, you know, that point for any patient that we might encounter. All right, number four, so my integration exploded. We have seen a major rise in understanding how orofacial myofunctional principles support feeding therapy, whether it's you know, from infant tongue elevation to chewing coordination. And I know we don't do Maya with the little ones, but in my program, I do teach how people who are properly licensed SLPs, OTs. You can address this in pediatric feeding therapy. Right? So from infant tongue elevation to chewing coordination, the feeding myo overlap. It's there. It's. We can't deny it. And so that's why I teach how we adapt it and feed the peds. But here's the thing. The new question isn't like, should I learn Mayo? It's how soon? And how can I integrate it into my feeding practice? Love this question. Love getting that question. Okay, and then number five, AI and technology entered the chat, my friends. So 2025 was the first year that therapists really dove in and started using AI tools to help analyze patterns, write notes, guide parent education. But the key lesson here is that AI can support, not replace, clinical reasoning. And so the clinicians who are leveraging it ethically to streamline, right, not to substitute, are gaining massive time freedom while improving quality of care. And this is something that we're teaching inside our programs because it's so important. It's so, so important. All right, so these are, like, some of the key updates that I've seen as far as, like, research goes and practice updates and everything in 2025. Now there's a changing landscape at play. Okay, so, like, what does this all mean, like, for how they were actually going to close out this year, although it is already the end of 2025 and, you know, and what does that mean, moving into 2026? Let's just talk about closing out this year because there are some trends that are defin. Right? So number one, the rise of specialists. The days of being a generalist who also does feeding are fading fast. I am seeing parents seek out experts, seek out clinic feeding therapists who understand complex feeding issues, tethered oral tissues, airway issues, oral motor development, and to the point where people come to me and say, oh, no, no, I. I saw that practice in my area. I saw that they also do feeding. I'm looking for the excavation expert. I'm looking for, like, we've been to other people. I want the one that is the expert in this space, that has advanced education in this space. Not that you guys, you know, can't also do other things, but they want people with advanced experience. And so, my friends, that's why we rolled out the certification a couple years ago. Cpft, Certified pediatric feeding therapist that has now become a benchmark for credibility because it represents death and not like dabbling in the specialty. And we have had some of our graduates in cpfp. I will plug them a little bit who are have told us like, oh well, doors opened for me because I got the certification and people parents are now filling up my schedule. I have more referrals from doctors and other providers because they see that I have gone deep in my feeding, you know, experience, knowledge, all the above. I was like, wow, this is kind of cool, right? The rise of specialists, number two, mentorship over webinars. So therapists, and I think this has been going on for a while, but therapists, y' all are done with surface level CEUs, right? 2025 really proved that mentorship support and case based learning actually moves the needle clinically. That is what we're seeing inside of our programs. That's what we provide. And the trend is moving from like, let's just consume information to let's apply information. Again, how do I know this? Because this is what we provide. That is why community based learning while, you know, like the pediatric feeding hub, our feeding mentors or membership mentorship really, you know, or the MYO membership, etc. And even our courses where we have mentorship built in if they're thriving, because it bridges the gap between knowledge and action. All right? And families now expect education, right? Parents are showing up informed, my friends. They're not always accurately informed because it depends where they're getting their information from. You know, they're learning from TikTok, Instagram, Google. But they are coming in with solid questions, right? Questions about ties, transitioning to solids, airway, et cetera. And so clinicians who know how to educate confidently and correct misinformation without judgment are the ones who are building trust faster than ever and fill in their caseloads even in a down. All right, and so, you know, the last piece here that I want to highlight as far as like the trends that I've seen in the field is that airway is a new frontier, my friends. We've been waiting for this day. I don't think we're completely there, but we're getting there. More so Every single day. 2025 confirmed with a lot of like what many of us have already known and that is that airway and feeding are inseparable. So clinicians are finally screening for breathing patterns, mouth posture, sleep symptoms as part of feeding assessments. Yay. Feed the beads. And this shift is positioning feeding therapists as key players in early airway intervention. Right? That, my friends, is a massive Opportunity for having massive impact. Okay, all right, so I want to move on to my predictions for 2026. Okay? So let's spend a few minutes just talking about where all of this is headed in the next year, because I have some strong predictions for 2026. Okay? So I got four big ones. Number one, function first becomes industry standard. Come on, guys, work with me here, right? The focus on true functional assessment, not appearance, not isolated skills. But functional assessment is going to define best practice in 2026. Right? So I want you to expect more frameworks like our functional diagnosis model, which I talked about on the last episode that I. My last solo episode. I want things like that to be adopted by feeding in myo clinicians alike. Right? And the question again, should be shifting from what exercise should I use to what function am I restoring? And then we have muscle informed exercises that we use, which is what I teach in the bio method. All right, so function first becomes industry standard. I know big goals. I got big visions. Okay, Number one. Number two, feeding and myo converge. Right? The integration will no longer be optional. It'll be essential. Therapists who understand both symptoms like systems, not symptoms systems like oral, motor, orofacial function will be the leading care teams. Hello, feeding therapists. Get on board. And so I want you to expect that there's going to be, you know. Well, I don't want to give anything away here. We have some fun things coming in 2026, but I think it's a little too soon to announce them. So stay tuned. Stay tuned on that. All right, number three, measurable outcomes matter. So 2026 will be the year of data in private practice. Right. I believe clinics should be tracking like, time to progress carryover success metrics and using that to market their impacts, because I think so. So many of you that I have coached, I've mentored are not realizing the positive impact that you have on your patients and how much quicker when you are properly trained, your patients often will move through therapy. And so that is something that needs to be highlighted. Right? And this shift will help to elevate the entire field, honestly, you know, because we want to drive everybody to be a little bit more evidence driven, you know, and we want to be a more medically recognized profession. We talk about these things. So I do think that, you know, this could be one way that we got there. All right? And then last but not least, implementation support will outperform information. Right? This CEO landscape is saturated. Although I will say there still are really VAR courses lacking in the pediatric feeding space. Which is why we've created so many. But what clinicians want to and what clinicians will pay for is transformation, feedback, ongoing access, right? And so the winners in 2026 will be the programs that combine expert content and live mentorship and result based frameworks. And I know some people out there have tried, and I don't mean this in a mean way, but not everybody can accomplish this or pull it off. There are some people trying. And so what I'm also seeing is that the end user, right, the person who is putting in their credit card is doing their due diligence and looking for programs that are established, that have had the success that like, like feed the Pete's, for example, right? We've had over 2600 SLPs and OTs go through that program. They're being hired into NicViews. Hospitals are putting, you know, their patients or their patients, their clinicians, their therapists through the programs because it works. Our system works and our system has not yet been repeated. And that's because most people don't really understand the integration of what we're doing between. We tell you it's the transformation, it's the feedback, it's the ongoing access, it's the live mentorship. We have results based frameworks, we've got all these things, but no one really has my vision, nobody has my brain. And so what we've created appears to be something that just still has not existed anywhere else yet. And I don't say that to toot my own horn, but I say that because this is still massively needed and missing in the pediatric feeding space. Which is the entire reason why I created this back at the end of 2019 and launched it in the beginning of 2020. So I could go on for days. But let's keep this short. When we look back at 2025, right, here's the big picture, okay? We've moved from isolated oral drills to integrated functional care. We have built bridges between feeding and airway. We've embraced data, collaboration and education. And 2026, my friends, is about refining that, making it seamless, measurable, powerful, Right? And so I want to hear from you all, what do you want to learn in 2026? Okay? Like what skills or cases are you ready to master? I would love for you to, you know, if you're listening on YouTube, comment below. Leave me a review. If you're listening on Apple Podcasts or any of those other major podcasting platforms, go to Instagram at Hallie Balkan. Drop a comment under the podcast episode. There or if you're in one of our our private groups, you know, our mentorship groups. Post in the group your feedback. And I don't know if you guys realize this, but like, it quite literally shapes what we build next. Our courses, our mentorships, our trainings that are going to help you crush your goals in 2026. And every single thing we've created. And the reason why some things have been created out of order, you know, seemingly out of order, is because you all have been asking for things. And when you ask for it, we turn around and create it. Yes, I had a big vision for Feed the Beads and Feed the Peas in the beginning and a MYO course, but you all have really, really, really helped me shape everything else that we've created in the business and the company since those two courses were launched. And so I just want to say thank you to you for an amazing 2025. Here's to an even better 2026. We've got some really cool things ahead and I'm excited to continue hanging out with you all. So I hope everybody has a Happy New Year. Happy End of the year. By the time you're listening to this, most of the major holidays have passed in the US but if you're still in holiday mode, Happy Holidays and I will talk to you guys in the New year.

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As a substitute for the consultation, diagnosis and or medical treatment of a qualified healthcare provider. Thanks for listening to this podcast. If you found value in this episode and want to hear more of these Myotots, Airway and Feeding related episodes, be sure to leave a review on Apple Podcasts and share this episode on your social media platforms. You can access free resources and all I offer@halibalkin.com or pop over to Hollybalken on Instagram to get all the latest updates.