What is it about?

Pediatric feeding disorder (PFD) can affect a child’s health, development, and daily life, while also placing significant demands on families and the professionals who care for them. This article identifies barriers that can make it difficult for children with PFD to receive optimal care. Five service-provider barriers are described: research gaps and clinical variability; gaps in clinical training and knowledge; resource and staffing constraints; limitations of clinical tools; and influences on care recommendations. Five caregiver barriers are also identified: accessibility and logistics; financial and resource; psychosocial and cultural; complexity of interventions; and caregiver education and training. The article then proposes five areas for action: advancing research, policy, and guidelines; providing PFD-specific professional training; expanding access to care; strengthening support systems; and enhancing caregiver education and engagement.

Featured Image

Why is it important?

Despite growing recognition of pediatric feeding disorder (PFD), important challenges remain in providing optimal care for children with PFD and their families. These challenges can create difficulties for both families seeking care and professionals working to provide it. By bringing these barriers together and identifying areas for coordinated action, this article offers a path toward improving PFD care.

Perspectives

Many years ago, I began making a list of the problems my colleagues and I were experiencing as speech-language pathologists, along with the challenges our patients and their caregivers and families encountered in addressing pediatric feeding disorder. The list began as “The 7 Tipping Points of PFD Care,” but it continued to grow! Over time, I realized that identifying barriers was only part of the story. The list deserved a flipside view: consideration of how barriers might be reduced and care improved. I also came to recognize that an ideal system of PFD care would require the concerted efforts of many—families, clinicians, researchers, institutions, and policymakers. This article is the culmination of that clinical journey and a proposed path forward.

Leann Schow

Read the Original

This page is a summary of: Service Delivery Barriers in Pediatric Feeding Disorder: A Path Forward, American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, September 2026, American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA),
DOI: 10.1044/2026_ajslp-25-00386.
You can read the full text:

Read

Contributors

The following have contributed to this page