Latest / INSPIRE STORY / Podcast Episode 3 – Picky Eating

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Podcast Episode 3 – Picky Eating · INSPIRE STORY

0:01
Speaker 1: You're listening to another episode of the Inspire Health Podcast.
0:04
Thank you for joining us. This episode features a wonderful
0:08
friend and colleague of mine, Lauren Resnik. If your child
0:11
is a picky eater or dealing with learning or developmental disorders,
0:16
then you will not want to miss this episode. Lauren
0:18
breaks down strategies and solutions that address the underlying issues
0:22
behind these concerns in a way that makes therapy engaging, motivating, challenging,
0:27
and fun. This was a super fun interview and Lauren
0:31
leaves us with so many great strategies that you can
0:34
incorporate with your kids right away. Welcome to the Inspire
0:38
Health Podcast. Your life is about to get a whole
0:40
lot better. Have you ever felt like you tried everything
0:43
and yet still couldn't find the answers or the solutions
0:46
that you were seeking, Whether you're dealing with chronic illness,
0:49
physical or emotional pain. I want you to know that
0:51
your body is the most sophisticated machine on planet Earth.
0:55
Your body holds unfathomable wisdom. Trust in it and learn
1:00
learn from it. Know that there are answers and there
1:03
are solutions to your specific health challenges, and we will
1:06
be uncovering all of them. Here on the Inspire Health podcast.
1:11
I'm so excited to be a part of your healing journey.
1:14
Your transformation starts sing. Hi, everybody, Welcome back to another episode.
1:21
Today with us, we have Lauren Resnik. Lauren received her
1:25
master's degree in speech and language pathology from the University
1:28
of Wisconsin and is the founder of Lauren Resnik Therapy Services,
1:33
which is a unique facility built around functionality and motivation.
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Her current clinical practice focuses on babies, infants, and toddlers.
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Lauren is dedicated to providing families with an eclectic, holistic,
1:46
and thorough approach to feeding and speech and language challenges.
1:50
Her clinic offers play based therapy services and sensory motored
1:54
gyms where they conduct evaluations and treatments. Their gyms also
1:58
encourage movement to enhance self regulation and attending behaviors. Lauren
2:03
has a whack of extra additional courses, I think more
2:06
than anybody I know. She continually continues taking courses over
2:10
and over again and all sorts of stuff to improve
2:13
her skills, and she has a special interest in feeding,
2:16
milfunctional therapy, motor disorders, and early intervention. Lauren thank you
2:22
so much for joining us. How are you doing today?
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Speaker 2: Thank you so very much for having me. This is
2:27
really fun. I'm very passionate about what I do, and
2:31
I know Jason is too, so I'm excited to see
2:34
what he's putting together for all of you.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, Lauren and I can often get together and have
2:39
talks on all sorts of things and go on for hours.
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So I'm really excited to pick your brain on some
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of these things today. So for people that aren't too
2:47
aware yet of what exactly speech and language pathologists do,
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you give a little bit of a breakdown on just
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what kind of work you do. What are the kind
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of kids that are coming into seeing you in practice,
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what are they working with? How about a heart know
3:00
when to bring their child in.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, so that's a really good question because a lot
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of the time people say, oh, you're a speech therapist,
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so you must help kids with their s's and RS.
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Speaker 3: I had a speech.
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Speaker 2: Therapist when I was young, and they helped me with
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my r Now I can say rabbit and I'm like,
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that's awesome. But we do a lot more than that,
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And in fact, I rarely rarely see kids for just
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s's and RS.
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Speaker 3: We really do a whole array of things.
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Speaker 2: And that's why I really do recommend when you are
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going to see a speech to language pathologist that you
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find someone who does have.
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Speaker 3: A lot of background and experience.
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Speaker 2: Working in, you know, the area in which you need
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because speech language pathologists work anywhere from like infant feeding
3:48
in the NICU to you know, adults like post stroke
3:54
with Parkinson's, working on voice, working on a phasia. So really,
4:00
really it's quite a spectrum, and you really got to
4:06
find somebody who knows what they're doing. So for me,
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I specialize, well, actually I can't say specialized, but I
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have a special interest in as Jason mentioned, babies, toddlers.
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I really really like to work with the younger population
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because what I'm finding the longer I practice is the
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earlier I can get to them, the quicker we can
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resolve the issue, and the quicker they can go on
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and thrive and develop at their optimal level, which is
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you know what we as parents all strive for our kids.
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So I used to see a lot of kids for
4:48
articulation and language, and now again I'm seeing babies with
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feeding disorders. I do a lot of see a lot
4:57
of kids with feeding disorders or feeding, feeding del and
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you know, we're we're working on kind of figuring out
5:05
the oral structure, and we're looking at seeing how the
5:10
muscles of the mouth are moving and functioning, and we
5:14
want to be forming that for best speech and feeding.
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And once we can kind of work on that, we
5:24
set them up for success and they sort of thrive
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in all the area the other areas. But you know,
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a speech language witholog just going back to the original question,
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a lot of the things you'll find we work on
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is language, early language and development, so like a late talker, articulation,
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like i'd mentioned, motor speech disorders, so things like appraxia
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where kids can't really sequence and coordinate their stands to formwards,
5:55
things like fluency and stuttering, alternative and augmentative communication for
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kids that don't have that vocal output, we work on
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getting them a good system that can help them communicate.
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Speaker 3: So every kind of communication, literacy, phonology, and then as
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I mentioned that feeding piece as well, some SLPs are
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now interested in feeding and doing that oral facial myology.
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Speaker 1: Yeah I'm interested. So I mean, yeah, definitely a lot
6:24
more than learning how to say rabbit yes, well, or
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I think a lot of times they think, like if
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your child's just having difficulties, maybe even with a lisp
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or something like that, and sort of how do you
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work with it? So it would be something you guys
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would look at. But basically there's a lot more to
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the spectrum. And this is partly why I want to
6:43
do these interviews because a lot of times there's so
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much aid available that people just don't know that it's
6:51
at their fingertips. And so if we can kind of
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share that information when when parents are having when the
6:59
children are having some sort of issues, and the parents
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then start to have an idea of where they can
7:04
take their kids to get evaluated and get treated appropriately.
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And like you said, this is the same for a
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lot of things. If you can get early intervention. It's
7:14
like the way the child's brain is making connections and
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changing and developing so fast, that's when you want to
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try and get as much much on top of things
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as you can early on. You mentioned around feeding delays
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and feeding disorders. That's a big one I've seen come
7:32
up a lot too the last well, like what what
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are people coming in, Like how would a parent know
7:39
that their child's having feeding delays or feeding disorder. Is
7:41
this if they can't latch properly with infants or what
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are you seeing and what are you finding? That usually
7:47
plays into it.
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Speaker 2: So for the most part, I'd say we see a
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lot of toddlers who are quote unquote picky eaters. I
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don't like using the word picky eater because as a
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speech in language pathologist, I think that the terms we
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use around our kids. Our kids are very smart and
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they pick up a lot of what we say, and
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if you're calling your your son or daughter a picky eater,
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then they're going to think that they are a picky eater.
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And we don't want them to think that. We want
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them to do trist eater. So again, I don't like
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to use that term, but that term is used quite
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quite quite frequently between.
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Speaker 3: Professionals and parents alike.
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Speaker 2: So we see a lot of those kids where they
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come in and they're just like my kid will only
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eat two things, three things, five things, and like, you know,
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every single meal is a struggle. I can't like, I
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just can't take this anymore.
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Speaker 3: What do I do? You know? So we see a
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lot of those kids.
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Speaker 2: Some of those kids are neurotypically developing, some of them
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have autism spectrum disorder. Really we see kids with anything
8:57
going on, they're all sort of similar shoes there.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, and definitely create some concerns for parents because I
9:06
swear as a parent, I'm a parent too, and I
9:08
know you are as well. And it's like the things
9:10
that tend to stress parents out almost more than anything
9:13
are if your child is not eating, or not sleeping,
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or not going to the bathroom properly. So if things
9:19
start to happen, then we start to kind of wonder
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what's up. So when kids eat well, I know from
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my own perspective, I'm always really happy when my children
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feel like they are eating a good, balanced, nutritious and
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I know they're getting all of the nutrients that they need.
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So when they do come in and they're only eating,
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you know, certain textures or certain key foods that they've
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decided are the only things they feel comfortable with, they
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will likely start to run into some other downstream problems
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with nutritional deficiencies. So when they come and see someone
9:52
like yourself, how do you work with feeding delays or
9:56
feeding disorders? What's your sort of piece on that. I
9:59
know how we might look at it from trying to
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balance nutrient levels and stuff, but it's a whole different
10:04
thing from the habitual passion of it. How do you
10:07
start to work on that?
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Speaker 3: That's right?
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Speaker 2: And so one of the biggest things that I get
10:12
is like parents will say to me like, well, we've
10:14
seen a naturopath or we've seen nutritionists or a dietitian.
10:18
And the one issue that we have, and this is
10:22
when sometimes I think it is better to see a
10:25
speech and language pathologists or an occupational therapist first that
10:29
is doing feeding is they'll say, you know, they have
10:32
these great, great ideas, but like, my kid won't need
10:35
any of that, Like, you know my naturopaths that take
10:38
these supplements, well, my kid won't. Or the dietitian said,
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here's a really great balanced meal that you can try, Well,
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my kid won't eat it.
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Speaker 3: So what do I do?
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Speaker 2: So for me, the first thing is to look at
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I do a sensory motor approach to feeding. So you
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want to look at what's going on in the sensory system.
10:56
You want to look at what's going on motorically. So
10:59
again I go back to always the structure and the
11:02
function of the mouth and the different parts of the
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mouth and how they're working. You know, obviously we also
11:09
want to take into consideration the environment, the parenting styles,
11:14
the behaviors associated. But again, like everything else, this is
11:18
a team approach because every single piece of that is
11:22
a very very important piece of the puzzle. And I
11:25
always tell parents to feeding it's not a quick fix,
11:28
right like when you bring me a five year old
11:31
who has only eaten three foods for two years, Like,
11:35
you know, I wish I had a magic wand but
11:39
you know, it's a process. It's a process. But we
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talk about a lot of things. Like I said, first,
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we'll kind of do that that initial assessment to see
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what's going on in that mouth, because a lot of
11:48
the time I do see some issues with with.
11:53
Speaker 3: Chewing, with being able to.
11:57
Speaker 2: You know, even like bring the food to form cohesive
12:00
bullus that's safe and efficient to swallow properly. You know,
12:04
all those things are things that I look at functionally
12:07
to make sure that the child can show and manipulate
12:10
the foods, because what I find is that a lot
12:12
of these kids they have it's sort of stemmed from somewhere.
12:16
And my favorite thing about my job and what I
12:19
do in every single assessment is find out why is
12:24
this happening? And everyone should be doing that, but not
12:29
everybody does do that. But it's really it's really important
12:34
because we can't really help this kid until we know
12:37
why it's happening. So we can go through a whole
12:40
behavioral approach for feeding with this child. But if the
12:44
child isn't eating a certain texture because they choked on
12:47
that texture when they were little, because they don't actually
12:51
know how to safely and efficiently manage that texture, then
12:55
guess what, They're not going to eat that texture. And
12:57
sure you can, you know, you can force feed them,
13:00
but that's not going to have a lasting effect.
13:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's actually that's hugely important because it comes back
13:11
to labeling. So it's like when we start to think
13:14
about our children being picky eaters, like you said, there's
13:17
almost kids just don't do stuff for the sake of
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doing it. For the most part, there's usually motivation behind it.
13:24
And so, like you said, it's not really that they're picky,
13:27
it's that for whatever reason, they weren't able to probably
13:31
manage different foods in a way that was comfortable for them.
13:34
So now what happens is that can actually even trigger
13:37
a bit of a fight or fight response in them
13:39
when they do take it, which kind of aggravates them
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even more, right, throws them out of their ability to
13:45
self regulate too.
13:46
Speaker 2: Yes, and I talk about that a lot in like
13:51
my feeding workshops as well.
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Speaker 3: I say, you know, like neurons.
13:54
Speaker 2: That fire together, wire together, and so a lot of
13:57
the time these kids, just like you said, they had
14:00
this event that happened, and whether the parents like know
14:05
about that event or not doesn't matter, because it's about
14:09
how that child felt at the time and when they
14:12
had some sort of an episode presumably whether it was
14:15
when they were a baby and they had reflux, or
14:18
whether it was you know, them trying solids for the
14:21
first time and it went down.
14:22
Speaker 3: The wrong way.
14:23
Speaker 2: Whatever it was, it was meaningful to them, and it does.
14:28
It has a lasting effect. So we have to kind
14:30
of figure out why, and then we can help retrain
14:34
the brain as to you know, no, this is safe
14:37
because now I can chew this food and it's safe now,
14:39
and now we can continue on this path.
14:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, I love it. I think that's great. So
14:52
retraining eating, how do you even start that process? Like
14:55
when a child is really stuck on a certain few foods,
15:00
what are some of the strategies that you can start
15:02
to motivate that child to want to even explore others
15:08
because Sonders, it takes you know, it's not just doing
15:11
it once and going no, my child tried it, my
15:13
child hates it, They're not going to do it, so
15:15
we just go back to their regular stuff. Usually takes
15:18
a while. And like you had mentioned when you're talking
15:19
about Peb's law, with the neurons that fire together, wire together,
15:24
it's also why it takes a little bit more time
15:26
to rewire the brain. You have to, you know, and
15:29
the main thing that does that is the creating another habituation.
15:34
It's creating another routine and that happens through repetition. So
15:39
how do you start the process with with parents when
15:42
they come in? What would it look like? How would
15:44
you what would be some examples that you might sort
15:46
of do.
15:48
Speaker 2: So again, the first thing I would do is an assessments.
15:50
We kind of look at the whole picture and then
15:52
depending on the child, because every child is so unique.
15:55
And I can't stress this enough because so many times
15:59
people well they just want to know, like how long
16:02
is this going to take?
16:04
Speaker 3: You know, like what are our steps? And and like,
16:08
I don't.
16:09
Speaker 2: I don't know, because again I treat every child as
16:11
an individual because of all these factors, everyone is so different,
16:15
so so so it's an answer that I can't often give,
16:21
but but I can tell you definitely how we start
16:24
the process and what that process entails. And so again,
16:26
once we figure out, you know, if there's something you know, structurally,
16:30
functionally sort of in the way, we want to address
16:33
that first and foremost. But working on rewiring the brain
16:39
and that habituation, like you said, that's usually the more
16:42
lengthier process. And again depending on the kids, some kids
16:46
will get it pretty quick. But we really do find
16:49
a lot of really really fun ways to play with
16:52
our food.
16:54
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I yeah.
16:56
Speaker 2: I always tell parents, like one of the first things
16:59
I say is like, get messy, you know, And a lot.
17:03
Speaker 3: Of them are like, oh, what you want me to do?
17:06
Speaker 2: What?
17:07
Speaker 3: Play with my food? What? And I'm like, yeah, yeah,
17:10
you want to play with the food. Food is fun.
17:13
Speaker 2: The most important piece of all of this is the
17:16
food exploration. So if a child can't, like I have
17:20
children that come in and they they see a food
17:24
and they'll vomit, you know, like, it can get to
17:27
that point, and so you know, we need to get
17:31
them comfortable with that food. So they need to be
17:33
able to see that food, they need to be able
17:35
to interact with that food. Before putting anything in their mouth,
17:38
we need to make sure they're comfortable with it. And
17:41
I give parents an example A lot of the time.
17:45
I think it was Marcia Dunklin. She's an amazing, amazing
17:49
feeding therapist, and she I think was the one who
17:54
wrote an article called everything something like Everything's like a grasshopper,
18:02
and and I just really liked the analogy because she
18:04
talks about how she went to Mexico and she was
18:07
with a family and they invited her for dinner and
18:11
she said, oh, that's so nice.
18:13
Speaker 3: And they were eating grasshoppers because they did, and she
18:18
was like, oh, God, like grasshoppers. And so she talks
18:28
about that.
18:29
Speaker 2: She took her to her tilla and she took a tiny, tiny,
18:31
tiny piece of the grasshopper leg and put a ton
18:33
of guacamoleon and everything else, and then you know, she
18:35
started eating it and she's like, Okay, that's not that bad.
18:38
And then she took another piece and again she felt
18:40
it in her hand, she put it in her totilla.
18:43
So she was having a sensory experience with it, and
18:46
she was able to do more and more, and then
18:48
she realized like, Okay, this isn't this isn't so bad.
18:51
I can do this and and and it's just really
18:53
important because we're saying to these children like it's just
18:57
a grape, it's just a pee, it's just whatever.
19:02
Speaker 3: But to them, it could.
19:04
Speaker 2: Be a spider, it could be you know, it could be.
19:09
Speaker 3: A flame of fire.
19:10
Speaker 2: Like this food is scary to them, and we have
19:13
to give them credit for that. And I think that
19:16
that's really hard for some people to understand, but I
19:19
think it's a really really important piece of all of this.
19:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's a huge part. And when you
19:25
start to make it fun, you get them out of
19:28
fight or fight again. So now you start to rewire
19:31
the context of the situation, so that now that child's
19:36
pairing eating and specific things with lightness and humor and fun,
19:41
and so that helps them get out of that fighter flight,
19:44
which then naturally starts to open the brain to new
19:47
experiences too. So I love it. I think it's really fun.
19:51
I think a lot of times, probably as parents, we
19:53
all need to play with our food a little bit
19:55
more at times.
19:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so like in our feeding groups do a
20:00
lot of these like like what else, these kids, depending
20:05
on their stages, we will put them in a group
20:07
and we'll put them with some other kids because it's
20:09
also really nice for them to have other people that
20:12
they can you know, we always try to we really
20:14
really create our groups in a way that we are
20:18
looking for specific matches. So we never want one child
20:23
to feel like their way below other.
20:26
Speaker 3: Kids, and we don't want anyone to feel like their
20:27
way above.
20:28
Speaker 2: Like we want to usually find somebody that's below in
20:31
one way and above in another way, and then the
20:34
other kid who's below in one way is above.
20:36
Speaker 3: And another way, and that sort of thing.
20:37
Speaker 2: In that way, we have every kid modeling, Like so
20:42
one kid might be great with touching the food and
20:44
that's really great for another kid to see, and then
20:46
the other kid might be good at eating it and
20:48
the other kid you know what I mean. But we
20:50
do these activities that are just really really really fun.
20:53
I've got the craziest, wackiest ideas and we just do
20:58
them all and it's actually a blast.
21:03
Speaker 1: I might want to come and sit down on one
21:08
of those time you had Also you were talking a
21:17
little bit about how the gyms encourage movement to enhance
21:21
self regulation and attending behaviors. Yes, a little bit about that,
21:26
because really self regulation is the information coming down the
21:31
on self regulation is showing that it is probably the
21:34
single most important skill to develop for ultimate success in
21:40
our world. So in my mind, it's like anything that
21:44
we can do to help our children self regulate really
21:48
really important. So like even when you're talking about the
21:51
feeding and creating play around it, that's usually an aspect
21:54
of what's going to probably help to self regulate because
21:57
you're helping that she'll get out of fight or flight.
21:59
How else does does speech and language pathology in the
22:03
way that you're incorporating things that your clinic help with
22:06
self regulation.
22:08
Speaker 2: So so as a speech language pathologist, I definitely can't
22:11
say I'm an expert at self regulation, but I have
22:15
had the well, I've been lucky enough to have worked
22:21
with occupational therapists my entire career, and when I went
22:25
into private practice, it was a must for me that
22:28
that we build our space to fit the needs of
22:32
these kids, to you know, be able to help them
22:34
achieve these goals, and that we had occupational therapists on
22:37
staff that really, you know, are the experts in this
22:41
field and can help us. But what I've learned from
22:44
them is just like unbelievable, and I use it in
22:47
every single one of my speech and language sessions.
22:51
Speaker 3: So we use like you had said.
22:53
Speaker 2: Initially, like we have swings set up in our clinic
22:57
and we use them a lot for speech. So just
23:00
even you know, playing on the swing and swinging back
23:04
and forth, that vestibular movement really encourages vocal output. So
23:11
we do that also for kids that are feeling a
23:13
little bit I'm sure about being with me, you know,
23:18
like oh what's she going to make me do?
23:20
Speaker 3: And feeling a little bit of pressure. It's a really
23:22
great way to take the pressure off and make it fun.
23:27
So we use swings.
23:29
Speaker 2: We have lots of different sensory tools at the clinic,
23:32
like a lot of weighted items, we have vibration, And
23:36
I just find that if we can get these kids
23:39
into their zone approximal development, they can learn so much
23:44
better and so much faster than if they were just
23:48
sitting there. Like I've never been a speech language but
23:51
just to sit at a table and chair and just
23:54
like drill a child because I'm bored. I can't imagine
23:58
how this like four year old field if they could
24:01
even sit there. And I don't expect the four year
24:04
old to sit there because that's not what four year
24:06
olds are supposed to do in my opinion.
24:08
Speaker 3: So so you know, we just we really have a.
24:11
Speaker 2: Lot of fun, and we encourage a lot of movement,
24:15
a lot of like deep pressure, heavy work, and a
24:19
lot of those different things that you'll learn from occupational
24:21
therapists really help kids stay calm and focus. And what
24:26
I find is that if we can do each stuff
24:47
and then after I'd be like, Okay, if you do
24:49
all of this, we can go play in the gym
24:50
for the last little bit and we go on the gym.
24:53
Speaker 1: You cut out there for a sec. Let me bring
24:55
you back just so I get that piece. Okay, I
24:57
think it was right when you're about to make your point,
25:00
and then we'll clip this section out.
25:03
Speaker 3: What was I saying?
25:05
Speaker 1: If we can just.
25:11
Speaker 2: Okay, oh man, if we could just okay, wait what
25:16
I was talking about? Like what part did I say?
25:18
What was the last thing I said?
25:19
Speaker 3: Do you remember?
25:20
Speaker 1: I can't remember the exact last part that you were at.
25:23
It only clipped out probably for about maybe five seconds
25:26
in between there.
25:28
Speaker 2: Okay, Okay, so did I say I said that when
25:32
I was working in Minnesota.
25:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, so maybe start there around when you're working at
25:36
Minnesota and then we'll clip it out.
25:38
Speaker 3: Okay.
25:41
Speaker 2: So when I was working at a great private clinic
25:43
in Minnesota and I was sitting at my table and
25:46
chair being a speech therapist, you know, I would work
25:50
with these kids, they'd do a great job, and then
25:52
they had five minutes at the end of the session
25:55
to play if they did well, So we'd go into
25:57
the gym, and you know, I'm always, I'm always being
26:00
a speech therapist. It doesn't stop just because we're in
26:03
a gym playing. So you know, I keep asking them
26:05
the questions and working on the same stuff, and.
26:08
Speaker 3: I'm like, what happens to everything? You just knew? It
26:12
just flit out the window.
26:14
Speaker 2: And I was just like so amazed and really like
26:18
dumbfounded because I'm like, huh, no, wonder your mom says
26:23
you're not doing this at home or you're not doing
26:25
this in the park, Like you can only do this
26:28
at a table and chair. So I just find that
26:31
if we can bring that movement and that real life
26:36
to our sessions.
26:38
Speaker 3: Our kids are able to pick it up.
26:40
Speaker 2: Faster, and they're able to generalize, and they're able to
26:42
keep it.
26:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, and like you said, bringing it into real life,
26:48
it's how do you integrate stuff not just in a
26:52
one dimensional environment, but how do you integrate it into
26:55
the rest of your life functionally. So again it's crosses
26:59
over with so many different things. I think it's no
27:02
different than when people are at a gym trying to
27:05
work a specific muscle, but not actually integrate it in
27:09
a very functional way that they can use in the
27:11
real world right outside of it working in that one area. Yeah,
27:17
so you incorporate a lot of play then and play
27:20
therapy then as as it sounds like a basis for
27:23
the treatment model that you guys.
27:24
Speaker 3: Use, Yes, definitely tons of research.
27:27
Speaker 1: On the benefits of play therapy. When you find kind
27:30
of the primary thing around that then, is it that
27:34
it relaxes the child to a point that they then
27:37
open up their learning starts to improve from part of
27:40
that just relaxation, self regulation response that comes with play.
27:45
Speaker 3: Definitely, I think that's a huge piece.
27:47
Speaker 2: Additionally, I think it just helps make a child feel
27:53
more comfortable, like you know, when they come into my office,
27:56
Like my office is pretty fun, but you know, I'm
27:59
a new person.
28:00
Speaker 3: It's a new space. They don't really know what I'm
28:03
going to do.
28:03
Speaker 2: They don't they don't know what to anticipate, and so
28:05
you know, they might be a little bit nervous as
28:08
one would be. And if we can just start off
28:11
by playing and you know, like having having fun, like
28:15
it builds our rapports so quickly, like you know, sometimes
28:19
it takes obviously longer, but for most kids, we could
28:22
develop a rapport really really fast, and they they learn
28:26
to trust me.
28:27
Speaker 3: Quickly, and they learn that you know.
28:29
Speaker 2: I'm not I'm helping them and I'm not going to
28:32
be hurting them, and so it just really sets the
28:35
foundation for that.
28:36
Speaker 3: And and once.
28:37
Speaker 2: We're there, like you said, like play is something that
28:41
they know, it's something they're good at.
28:43
Speaker 3: And they can feel confident with it.
28:45
Speaker 2: And and when we're playing again, we could just eat
28:49
more easily generalize a skill. So this is where I
28:53
you know, I always say like this is where you know,
28:57
you know, this is a good speech therapist, Like a
28:59
good speech there should be able to do whatever the
29:03
child wants to do and still be able to incorporate
29:06
your own goals, right. So it's very different from when
29:09
I first graduated from grad school and it was like, oh,
29:13
I have my list here of everything I'm going to
29:16
do in a session, and let me tell you, I
29:18
learned pretty quickly that that doesn't work, because surprisingly none
29:25
of those kids had the same agenda as I did,
29:28
and they didn't want to play the game I did.
29:32
And everyone sat around there like Okay, when's this over?
29:37
Speaker 3: You know.
29:37
Speaker 2: And so if you can throw that at the window
29:39
and you just start to know your games and your
29:41
toys and your strength and what you.
29:44
Speaker 3: Have, then you let the child lead you and you
29:48
jump in.
29:48
Speaker 2: And that's what makes a good therapist, somebody that you
29:51
know can be flexible like that. But again, I think
29:55
that following the child's lead. And I've taken a couple
29:58
of trainings and certification and one of them is the
30:01
dr floor time approach to therapy, and I think it's
30:04
totally awesome.
30:05
Speaker 3: And when I.
30:07
Speaker 2: Learned it, I was like, yeah, duh, I'm doing this,
30:10
like you know, like you gotta do you gotta do this.
30:14
So it just it just made sense to me. But
30:16
like you said, Jason, there is a lot more research
30:18
now and a lot more information about why this is
30:22
so great and for me, when kids started crying to
30:26
leave instead of crying to come, I said, Okay, I love.
30:33
Speaker 1: It when you take a course and it feels like that.
30:35
It reminds me of reading like a really good book
30:37
that you kind of already knew, but you loved the
30:39
book because it just reinforced what you already knew. Yeah. Great, nice.
30:45
So a couple other things I wanted to pinpoint. There's
30:48
a lot of stuff coming up around tongue tied and
30:52
how does that plane to things? What can a parent
30:55
when would a parent even have an idea that something
30:57
like that might be going on? What might be some
30:59
symptoms of it child that has because it's not necessarily
31:02
like we might have a picture of a tongue tied
31:07
child where it's like completely strapped down and there's no movement.
31:10
There's variability to it, right, there's nuances in it. So
31:14
can you tell me a little bit about that, because
31:16
I know that's an area that you're that you focus
31:18
on a little bit more too.
31:20
Speaker 2: Yes, I'm very passionate about it because it is coming
31:23
out a lot more now and there's some really positive
31:28
things people have to say in some really negative things
31:30
people have to say as well. So I think that
31:34
one of the negative things is that there's unfortunately still.
31:37
Speaker 3: Not a really really great.
31:41
Speaker 2: Way for us for everybody to be on the same
31:43
page about it, and and and because nobody's really learning
31:48
about it in school, you know, Like I've spoken to
31:51
a lot of dentists about this, orthodontists, pediatricians, uh SLPs ots,
31:58
and everybody's says like, okay, yeah, it's like five minutes
32:02
we learned, like, you know, if the if it, if
32:05
it attaches to the tip of the tongue, then they
32:07
have a tongue time. Then we released it, and then
32:09
that's great. But what we're finding now is that it
32:12
doesn't have to be that.
32:16
Speaker 3: Restricted to still be an issue.
32:20
Speaker 2: And and a lot of the studies that were done
32:23
in the past were all about the ones that were
32:27
those interior ties right at the tip of the tongue,
32:29
and so a lot of the research from back then
32:35
is not completely accurate by some people's you know what
32:39
some people are saying now. So so there are there
32:41
are tons of articles being written on tons, there's lots
32:45
of research being done now. But again, the classification system
32:48
is still new and not generalized around the world and interdisciplinary,
32:56
so so it's a bit of an issue, but just.
32:58
Speaker 1: For people that might not know exactly what tongue tied is.
33:01
So it's when the flap of the skin that's underneath
33:04
the tongue and it goes too far forward, and it
33:08
used to be diagnostic it would hit the tip of
33:10
the tongue and that was considered tongue tied. But now
33:13
they're kind of finding different degrees of where that actually
33:16
can go. It doesn't have to be all the way
33:18
to the tip of the tongue. It might be a
33:20
little bit back, but if it's restricting, then it needs
33:23
to be work in some facet.
33:26
Speaker 3: Yes, thank you Jason for clarifying it. That's great.
33:28
Speaker 2: So basically, so tongue tie is called ankyloglossia, and what
33:33
it is is it's when the freeing on that piece
33:36
of skin under the is tethered. So it's also referred
33:41
to as tethered oral tissues. And previously it was sort
33:45
of those anterior ties that were right at the front
33:48
that were being looked at, and now we're seeing now
33:52
we're talking a lot about posterior ties, which are just
33:55
further back, and if you have an anterior you literally
34:00
can't do anything, including sticking your tongue out. And so
34:05
the problem is that a lot of people were trying
34:06
to diagnose this just by sticking your tongue out. But
34:09
if you have a posterior tie that's further back, you
34:12
can stick your tongue out, fine, you can extend it.
34:15
Speaker 3: That's not the problem.
34:16
Speaker 2: The problem is bringing it up to the to the
34:20
top like to the palette, and bringing it side to side.
34:23
And both of these skills are I mean, they're they're
34:28
required for proper feeding and speech development. So so it
34:33
really is something that we do, in my opinion, need
34:36
to be looking more at.
34:38
Speaker 3: And I'm looking more at that.
34:39
Speaker 2: I've done a lot of training, and I think that's
34:43
that's the thing is the people who have done the training,
34:46
they understand it and they're able to see this. But
34:48
the people who haven't, what I like to say is
34:52
we don't know what we don't know, and so they
34:56
just in my opinion, they just.
34:58
Speaker 3: They don't know. They haven't learned. And so so it's hard.
35:05
Speaker 2: Because a lot of people are getting a lot of misinformation,
35:08
and I think it's really causing a bad name.
35:13
Speaker 1: So for what would be what would be some of
35:15
the primary symptoms, And so you said that could be
35:17
at the root of why someone might be a quote
35:20
unquote picky eater, or if they're having developmental delays in
35:25
their speech or some Is there any sort of telltale
35:28
signs that you would find that would trigger parents to
35:32
want to go and get a checked right away.
35:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, So starting off as babies, a lot of babies
35:38
who are having a lot of reflex and they're having
35:41
a lot of difficulty breastfeeding, if the moms are in
35:45
a lot of pain breastfeeding. These are big, big symptoms
35:50
and signs, and it happens a lot, right, It really
35:55
happens a lot. And sometimes you know, not all the time,
35:58
but sometimes it's just simple as doing a procedure, some
36:03
therapy and we're all good to go. And so I
36:06
just think it's very important that you know, moms are
36:10
aware of this and families are aware aware of this
36:13
because you know, again, it's just something that happens so often,
36:18
and and the problem now is finding people that can
36:21
help you and finding that network of support to do
36:24
all over the right things. And I would like to
36:26
take a minute to you know tell you what I
36:29
think is the right path, because I think it is
36:32
still so unknown and and and there's a lot of
36:39
debate about this, but for me, it's I think it's
36:42
really important that someone's doing a functional assessment of the tie,
36:45
not just looking at it. They need to be seeing
36:49
how that tongue is moving with the range of motion.
36:53
Is for oral work, sometimes osteopathy and other body work
36:57
is going to help because this baby now has developed
37:00
a lot of tension and a lot of compensating factors.
37:04
And people say, but it's just a newborn, but this
37:08
develops in eighteen weeks in utero, and so they've actually
37:13
been in this habit and having a incorrect tongue rest posture,
37:18
an incorrect sucking pattern for quite a while, even when
37:22
they're born. And so I find if we can do
37:25
a little bit of pre therapy and we can get
37:28
this baby to a point, then the release provider, the
37:32
one who's actually doing the release and cutting that tie,
37:38
they can do a much better job because all the
37:41
muscles are relaxed and they're free and they can kind of,
37:45
you know, kind of get the whole thing. And then
37:49
we do some therapy afterwards as well. And this really
37:53
creates the most optimal results.
37:57
Speaker 1: Wonderful. Yeah, it wasn't an area that was on my
38:00
radar as much until I really started talking to you
38:03
about it. And we would often think if I saw
38:07
reflux and feeding issues, especially feeding issues, a lot of
38:12
times what we would look at from an osteopathic perspective
38:16
would be a lot of times in the way that
38:18
they would the baby would exit the birth canal and
38:22
jam the ox a put and that might kind of
38:25
irritate the twelve cranial nerve, which is the hypoglossal, which
38:28
innervates the tongue, So then all of a sudden they
38:31
can't actually latch properly because they can't use their tongue properly.
38:35
But this is just more of a different structural perspective.
38:38
I'm looking at that too, So gives an idea why
38:42
it's so important to kind of things assessed in different ways.
38:45
See ultimately what piece is putting into it. Yeah, I
38:50
think that's what. I think that's a really important piece
38:52
because it does set up in motion early on because
38:56
I mean, again, like you said, reflex, So it's like
38:59
if a child has reflux, it's not uncommon that they
39:02
end up on some type of medication early on for reflux,
39:05
and if it's not needed then and you can get
39:09
to the root of it, then by all means, check
39:12
these different things out first before you start some of
39:14
the medications that often the child doesn't require right.
39:19
Speaker 2: So sometimes so that's when you would see it in babies,
39:22
and then you can also see it. Sometimes babies breastfeed fine,
39:26
and usually it's because the mom has an oversupply of milk.
39:30
But then maybe they'll want to switch to a bottle
39:32
and they'll have a hard time with the bottle. Or
39:35
maybe it's when they start solids and they'll have a
39:38
hard time with solids, or maybe it's when they start
39:40
talking and they're having a hard time with certain stands.
39:43
So again, it's not something that you just see at
39:47
one time in life. It sort of progresses and again
39:50
and everybody it's different. But those are some of the
39:52
times that you'll notice, like this seems harder than it
39:57
should be, and you might wonder why, yeah, yeah.
40:01
Speaker 1: And then go and get it checked. Yeah, a couple
40:07
other things here before I know we're coming up on time,
40:09
and I want to be respectful of your time. But
40:12
as far as learning and behavior goes when say children
40:16
are having behavioral problems to behavioral disorders, anything along these lines. Learning.
40:25
So from an SLP perspective, how would you look at
40:29
learning and behavior disorders or learning and behavior disabilities. I know,
40:34
for me, I might look at it from a biochemical
40:36
perspective and from a nutrient perspective. But from your perspective
40:40
when a child's having outbursts or or learning disabilities of
40:45
some sort, where does your head kind of go? What
40:47
are the pieces that need to be looked at from
40:49
your perspective?
40:52
Speaker 2: Okay, right, So for me, behavior sort of equal communication,
41:00
you know, like I like to think that no child
41:03
is bad, no child wants to be bad. So what
41:06
is happening that we're seeing these behaviors? And a lot
41:11
of the time it's an inability to communicate how they feel.
41:15
Speaker 3: What they think.
41:17
Speaker 2: And because of that inability to communicate, they're now displaying
41:23
all these behaviors. So for me, for all those kids
41:28
that come in with the behaviors or the parents are
41:29
complaining that they're doing this and that and they don't
41:32
want them to be you know, first I look at
41:35
how are they communicating? Like are they able to get
41:39
my attention? Are they able to tell me if something's wrong,
41:44
Are they able to.
41:45
Speaker 3: Ask me a question if they're not sure?
41:47
Speaker 2: And a lot of the time these kids are having
41:49
difficulty with something somewhere down the road with some of
41:53
those things, and they don't know what to do, so
41:57
they try to get attention a different way, either getting
42:02
out of a situation or kind of getting attention to
42:09
get what they finally need exactly.
42:13
Speaker 1: And you think about it, even from an adult perspective,
42:15
what creates probably some of the most conflict in our
42:18
adult relationships is miscommunication. So it only makes sense that
42:23
as a child who's you know, not completely wired yet
42:27
to kind of even regulate properly or optimally, that that's
42:31
going to probably put them over the edge way faster
42:34
than it would even for an adult. And we know
42:35
how much that can bother us when communication is an issue. Yeah,
42:40
it's great too, because it's just also so good for
42:42
parents to fare that there's usually a reason for why
42:48
we see behavior come out rarely, And it doesn't take
42:51
away from the fact that as a parent son as
42:53
it can be completely frustrating and overwhelming and exhausting. I
42:57
know that. But if we if we know that there
43:00
are reasons for why it's happening. They're not just a
43:04
bad kid or a picky kid. It gives us a
43:07
lot more resources to be able to look for another
43:12
answer right and have a little bit more compassion, And
43:15
we do see them flipping out and whatnot too, So
43:18
I think that's a wonderful piece around communication. So then
43:21
as you help to restore their ability to communicate, often
43:25
you will find that nervous system settles down a little
43:28
bit more, frustration calms down a little bit more, and
43:30
then you often find that behavior starts to normalize a
43:33
little bit better.
43:36
Speaker 3: Mm hmmm, yeah, I do.
43:38
Speaker 2: I find that if we can give them a means
43:40
to get their point across, we usually see better overall behavior.
43:45
Speaker 1: Awesome. Last thing I wanted to pick your brain on
43:49
was perspective as an SLP and as a parent and
43:55
seeing lots of children over the years, what would be
43:58
some of the top do and do nots that you
44:01
could tell or mention to parents so that they've got
44:04
an idea, because sometimes parents have no idea what really
44:08
we should be doing or should be doing that might
44:10
be creating some troubles down the road, or that we
44:13
should be doing that could pave the way to make
44:15
things a lot easier. What would be some of your
44:19
your top few do's or do nots for parents?
44:23
Speaker 2: Well, my first thing that I do like, that I
44:26
really like to do as a parent with all the
44:28
experience that I have working with kids, is I really
44:32
try to make things fun and enjoyable. And when something isn't,
44:39
I stop and I think what's happening, what's gone wrong?
44:44
Because then I can usually come back and try it
44:49
in another way. And I think that, you know, that's
44:52
one thing for me as a parent that I really
44:55
do like every single day because it's not well, not
45:00
to say it's not supposed to be hard, it's hard, yeah.
45:04
Speaker 3: But.
45:09
Speaker 2: In terms of like eating a meal, like listen, like
45:13
the reality of every day is we've got stuff to do,
45:15
we got things going on, and so we can't take forever.
45:19
Speaker 3: And that's a lot of.
45:20
Speaker 2: Where my frustration comes in because I'm just like, all right,
45:22
hurry off, like let's go. But you know, when you're
45:26
taking the time and you don't have somewhere to go
45:29
right away, and you're taking the time to spend with
45:31
your child, whether it's.
45:32
Speaker 3: Eating a meal, reading a book, playing a game, you know,
45:37
is how's that going?
45:40
Speaker 2: Like is it are you getting a lot of back
45:42
and forth communication? Are you both happy? Are you having fun?
45:47
Is everyone sort of asking questions? Are you on the
45:50
same page? And this is where we can see speech
45:52
and language development flourish, and and this is where we
45:55
can also see like, if these things aren't happening, then
45:59
it might be something we want to look into, you know,
46:02
because because a lot of these things do happen, you know,
46:07
developmental like sort of like natural development is just really
46:14
cool and you just watch one thing turn into another
46:17
and turn into another. And if you're hitting a roadblock
46:20
somewhere and it's not natural and it's not really happening,
46:23
then you might just wonder.
46:25
Speaker 3: You know why. And there's so many great professionals out
46:27
there that can help you. And you know, some.
46:30
Speaker 2: People will call me and they say, you know what,
46:31
I I'll talk to them on the phone and they say,
46:34
I've got these these issues and do you think it's
46:37
a problem or not? And sometimes I say, you know what,
46:39
not really like it sounds pretty typical to me. But
46:42
if you're concerned, come in, let's have an assessment, and
46:47
you know you'll feel better, right And then they can
46:50
come in and I say, you know what they're doing, great,
46:52
here's some tips like see yeah, and that's great, and
46:55
if not, then we can give them some tips and get.
46:57
Speaker 3: Them back on track.
46:58
Speaker 2: So so I think it's always good idea if you're
47:00
questioning anything. I think parents have gut reactions and they
47:05
know what's up more than anybody else. And so I
47:08
think you as a parent need to listen to your
47:10
gut and not listen to other people because a lot
47:13
of people tell you what they think they want you
47:16
to hear, and they'll say, you know, everyone that comes
47:19
into my office, but everybody said this was okay, and
47:22
I so I kept waiting and waiting, And if you
47:25
don't feel like it's okay, that's the most important piece.
47:29
So I think that's the biggest thing. But in terms
47:31
of like feeding and speech and language development, I think
47:36
that just exposing your kids to as much as possible
47:40
early on is really the.
47:42
Speaker 3: Way to go.
47:43
Speaker 2: So you know, I had my son exposed to every
47:48
single type if you actually made it a point to
47:50
every time I went to the grocery store to buy
47:53
a couple of new items just so that he could
47:56
I could expose him to it and whether we played
48:01
with it or ate it, it was always there. And
48:06
I think that's really great. And to be able to
48:08
bring your kids to the grocery store and let them
48:11
pick out some things that they want to so again
48:14
it's you're interacting, they're interacting. I think these are really
48:18
great things. And when you're at the grocery store, let's
48:20
talk about what's happening. You know, you can label all
48:24
of the different things you see, you can talk about
48:28
what's happening. And and these are all really important things too,
48:32
you know, like just to be able to talk to
48:35
your child for them to hear re so important for
48:41
these little kids. And so I will say that for
48:45
some kids who have like a motor speech delay, you know,
48:49
sometimes there are some different strategies. Sometimes less is more
48:53
for these kids. But for typically developing kids, really you
48:58
just want to You just want to tell as much
49:00
as possible and have them hear that.
49:04
Speaker 1: I think that's great advice. Incorporate more play, make things
49:08
fun when things aren't working, start to question a little
49:11
bit more, and then you're comming to round repetition when
49:15
it's yeah.
49:17
Speaker 2: And also talking talking at the level of your child,
49:21
I think is a really big one, you know, and
49:23
again it kind of goes with play, but just to say,
49:27
when you're playing with the child, you know, get your
49:30
phone away, get down on the floor with them. You
49:34
need to interact, You need to get that back and forth.
49:38
Speaker 3: They need it from you, you need it from them.
49:41
Speaker 2: And and that's the other that's another really big one
49:43
for me.
49:44
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a huge one I think too is when
49:47
you are going to be with your child and you're
49:49
going to play with them, take the time to be
49:51
just very present with them and definitely like take the
49:55
phone away, put the computer away, like be there because
49:57
they know and it's not the same. They would be
50:01
better off to have fifteen minutes of really quality direct
50:05
communication and eye to eye contact and seeing all the
50:09
facial changes and everything than to have an hour of
50:12
kind of half there, half doing something. So I know myself,
50:18
if I'm ever trying to get something done and my
50:19
daughter wants my attention, she will come and literally grab
50:22
my face and pull my face beddy, look at me,
50:25
look at me. So then I know that's it. Computers down,
50:29
time to go and play with her or do something else.
50:32
They will tell you we just have to.
50:34
Speaker 3: Listen exactly exactly, Lauren.
50:38
Speaker 1: That was wonderful. I so appreciate your time and being
50:41
able to talk to you. How can people learn a
50:43
little bit more about you? Where can they find you
50:47
anything else? Any of the projects you've got going on? Now,
50:49
what's the best way people can get a hold of
50:51
you if they need to?
50:53
Speaker 3: So?
50:54
Speaker 2: Our website is www dot Lauren Resnik dot com and
51:01
you can find lots of information there about what we do,
51:05
who we are, and.
51:07
Speaker 3: All that fun stuff.
51:09
Speaker 2: You'll also find there some of the different groups that
51:11
we do, and some of the parent info sessions so
51:14
we run. Typically we try to do the monthly parent
51:18
Info sessions and Jason did one of us ours, which
51:21
was awesome. We try to get just different really great
51:26
professionals and talking about different things. A lot of time
51:29
we run them ourselves and talk about things like self regulation,
51:32
picky eating, early language development. And we just asked that
51:38
you make a small donation to Kids Foundation for these,
51:42
so they're not expensive, and they're usually on Wednesday nights
51:47
from seven to nine, the last wednesdays of the month,
51:50
so you can check those out on our website too,
51:53
And yeah, all my information email phone numbers there, so
51:58
if you have any questions.
52:00
Speaker 3: Awesome.
52:01
Speaker 1: You'll put it all in the show notes too, so
52:03
people have links to everything.
52:05
Speaker 3: Cool.
52:06
Speaker 1: Lauren, thank you so much. That was wonderful. Love the information.
52:09
I think that's going to give people a lot of value.
52:12
And anybody who is looking for an SLP look up Lauren.
52:16
She is wonderful. Thank you so much, Lauren.
52:20
Speaker 3: Thanks Jason, Well, that was awesome.
52:23
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for taking the time to invest
52:26
in your health and well being. Since this podcast is
52:29
brand new, reviews and subscribers are so vital for us
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52:36
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52:52
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52:55
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52:59
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53:01
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53:05
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53:07
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