A therapeutic feeding programme. I: Theory and practice of feeding.

Feeding problems are often commented on in the literature, but very little has been reported on the systematic examination of these problems. In the present study feeding disturbances were treated as part of a full diagnostic and treatment programme for disturbed children in a small residential psychiatric unit. The feeding programme was based on the early work of Clancy and colleagues in Australia, and consisted of offering the child food in a set situation by the same 'feeder'. A one-way screen was used for observation and video-recording. Three children are described in detail, and a striking effect was the immediacy of change in their feeding disturbances. It is stressed that early feeding difficulties of disturbed children can give rise or contribute to ever-widening faulty development.