Nutritional health impacts all aspects of a child’s development now and later in a child’s life. Nutrition has a direct impact on cognitive development, academic performance, and social behaviors. Healthy eating is an important, often overlooked, life skill. A healthy, balanced diet is essential for optimal growth and development. Studies have concluded that as high as 90% of children with developmental delays experience nutrition risk factors. Most times these risk factors were linked to oral motor dysfunction, resulting in poor nutritional intake.
Our Nutritionist looks at several parameters to complete a comprehensive assessment of a child’s nutrition.
- A comprehensive nutrition assessment includes food and nutrition-related history, anthropometric measurements, biochemical data, medical tests and procedures, nutrition-focused physical findings, and a patient history.
- Identifying and labeling specific nutritive diagnosis and findings is the next step. Nutrition diagnosis may be temporary and resolve with nutrition interventions, as opposed to medical diagnoses.
- Create treatment intervention in conjunction with team to address nutrition related behaviors, risk factors, environmental conditions, or aspects of nutritional health.
- Nutrition Monitoring, which includes follow up appointments, and measuring progress with nutrition goals and data collection.
