The Cindy & Tod Johnson Center for Pediatric Feeding Disorders

The Cindy & Tod Johnson Center for Pediatric Feeding Disorders offers the only interdisciplinary feeding program in New York State to help diagnose and treat feeding disorders. The program uses a team approach to identify the problem and address the issue, including pediatric gastroenterologists, speech pathologists, occupational therapists, behavioral psychologists, nutritionists, social workers and pediatric nurse practitioners.

What is a Feeding Disorder?
Experts estimate that nearly 25% of all children will develop a feeding disorder. The prevalence climbs to 80% in children with special healthcare needs and developmental delays. Feeding disorders occur when a child has difficulty consistently consuming nutrition by mouth to promote physical and cognitive growth. They should not be confused with picky eaters or eating disorders such as anorexia or bulimia.

Children enrolled in the intensive feeding program can be treated as inpatients or day patients. The program offers comprehensive evaluations, medical management, development of individualized treatment plans aligned with parents’ goals, therapeutic meals, and nutritional supplementation. The team focuses on the whole child – both clinical and behavioral aspects of the child’s feeding disorder are addressed.

Designed with a family-centered behavioral approach, our intensive program identifies new strategies to assist children who present with eating difficulties such as mealtime tantrums, food refusal, nutritional deficiencies, failure to thrive, dependence on liquids, poor chewing, poor suck and swallow, and extreme weight loss.

A referral source or parent may refer a child by calling 718-281-8541 for a phone interview.