76. When It's MORE Than Picky Eating: All Things Pediatric Feeding Disorder with Jaclyn Pederson, CEO of Feeding Matters

Written By Brittyn Coleman, MS, RDN/LD

In this episode of the Nourishing Autism Podcast, Brittyn welcomes a very special guest, Jaclyn Pederson, the dynamic CEO of Feeding Matters. They dive into a topic that's crucial but often overlooked: Pediatric Feeding Disorder (PFD).

With her wealth of knowledge and passion, Jaclyn shares invaluable insights about what PFD is, how it affects children, especially those on the autism spectrum, and why early intervention is key. Listen to also get a peek into Jaclyn's personal experiences and the groundbreaking work of Feeding Matters!

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TRANSCRIPT

Hi, I'm Brittyn, a Registered Dietitian and autism sibling. I have a passion for helping parents of neurodivergent kids navigate nutrition and wellness for their child, one small step at a time. Here we'll explore practical nutrition tips, learn from top autism experts, break down the newest research, and share inspirational stories that will empower you to utilize nutrition to help your child feel their best and thrive.

Listen in while picking kids up from school, sitting in a therapy waiting room, taking a quick walk or wherever you find yourself, looking for some inspiration and a friend to guide you along this journey. This is Nourishing Autism.

Jaclyn: [00:00:00] I think a lot of it comes to actually having knowledge and access to what pediatric feeding disorder is. Because so many times we've had families come to us

and say we've been trying feeding therapy but hasn't been working and we need to find another therapist and we do have a provider directory on our website that has

many different therapists and I think the ones on there at least understand PFD.

But when something isn't working, you got to kind of go back to square one and look at it from the framework perspective of okay, do we really know where maybe

pain is coming from and why we might be trying to avoid mealtimes?

[00:01:00]

Brittyn: Hey everyone, welcome to the Nourishing Autism Podcast. Today we are diving into an important but overlooked topic, Pediatric Feeding Disorder or PFD and its impact on children, including those on the autism spectrum. I'm really excited to dig into what PFD actually is and how this actually may be affecting your child if they have a limited diet.

Joining me is Jaclyn Pederson, the CEO of Feeding Matters, which is a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting children with PFD and their families. Let me just tell you, Feeding Matters is an incredible organization. They have incredible trainings for practitioners around pediatric feeding disorder, and I've known about them for five or six years and just have known that they [00:02:00] are the leading organization to help with raising awareness around pediatric feeding disorder.

Jaclyn has been at the forefront of reshaping the system of care for pediatric feeding challenges, and under her leadership, Feeding Matters has become a driving force for awareness, education, and advocacy. We'll be talking about what PFD actually is, how it affects children's growth and development, and what early intervention is so critical, especially in children on the autism spectrum who face a higher prevalence of feeding issues.

Did you know that up to 80 percent of children on the autism spectrum may experience some form of feeding challenge? PFD goes beyond picky eating and can include difficulty swallowing, avoiding certain textures, and even needing a feeding tube. So today Jaclyn's going to help us understand what families can do and what resources are available to ensure these children thrive.

Let's get started.

Hey everybody, welcome back to the Nourishing Autism Podcast. I am super psyched to be sitting here today with Jaclyn [00:03:00] Pederson. Thank you so much for being here and I'm excited for our conversation. She's the CEO of Feeding Matters and I'm really excited to talk about their organization because I've known about them for a very long time.

So welcome to the podcast, Jaclyn.

Jaclyn: Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited to be here.

Brittyn: Of course, yeah, and we've already had, I feel like, a good conversation before this even started airing, so I'm like, excited to dig in deeper, but tell us more about who you are and what Feeding Matters is.

Jaclyn: Yeah. So my name is Jaclyn Pederson. I'm CEO of Feeding Matters. I have been with Feeding Matters for 11 years, and I started with this organization just as our grant coordinator and volunteer coordinator, and I was really interested in what we did. My background is in nonprofit management and healthcare innovation and systems practice.

So it was a nice marrying of the nonprofit work of making a difference with also changing [00:04:00] kind of the healthcare landscape and some of the healthcare challenges that we see in this world, but what I didn't have at the time with any real life experience around feeding or even having children or anything like that.

And so I quickly fell in love with our mission. And just continue to see the growth of our organization. And I took over as CEO during the pandemic when we really needed to make sure we stayed together as a team and put our values at the center of our organization to be able to kind of make it through that time.

And it was, it was amazing because at that same time was when the PFD (pediatric feeding disorder) diagnosis became official after years of us advocating to the CDC. And so it was just a wonderful chance of our kind of the next generation of our organization and just a little bit about

Feeding Matters itself. We are a national nonprofit organization headquartered in Arizona. [00:05:00] We support families of children who have pediatric feeding disorder. And oftentimes it can look like many different things, but pediatric feeding disorder is when a child really isn't eating appropriate for their age.

And so sometimes that may be, you have a four year old who you're expecting to have some table food and stuff, but they're really sustaining themselves on a nutritional drink. Or it may even be so severe that they need a feeding tube for their nutrition. And the way we describe pediatric feeding disorder is across four domains.

So there's kind of like the framework of PFD versus the diagnosis of PFD. But the framework of PFD too is, if there is kind of medically something going on that may be manifesting as some behavior problems, that that's one of the pieces of dysfunction. And then if there's a feeding skill problem. So it takes us, you know, early childhood through like primary and elementary school to learn how to eat.

And so if there is any disruption in that [00:06:00] process, it takes us even longer to learn how to eat. And I think that's a really common myth that people think that oh, eating just comes really naturally, but it is a muscle and it's something that is a practiced and built up skill. And so that's kind of the feeding skill side of PFD.

And then there's the nutrition side of PFD. And that can look like either nutrition is off because we're only eating certain foods or we have certain preferences around foods or just the implications of all of the different interactions of the other domains. And then the fourth domain in which is one that I feel really passionately about is the psychosocial domain.

And that is not only how a child feels about their experience at mealtimes and maybe how stressful it is for them, but also looking at it holistically with the whole family. Because one thing that we know about feeding and as moms, I think we know this too, is we're so involved in the process. For breastfeeding or bottle feeding at the start,

it's us in that process, too. [00:07:00] And so in the psychosocial domain not only do we look at how the child feels about food and mealtimes and what stress is coming out from

there and what behaviors are coming out that are trying to communicate that something is wrong, but also how is

that impacting the whole family environment and how are mealtimes feeling for the whole family?

And so if there is dysfunction in that psychosocial domain, something is wrong and we've got to get to the bottom of it.

Brittyn: Definitely. Oh, sorry. Yeah.

Jaclyn: Oh, no, no. I mean, I just kind of took a dive into PFD, but Feeding Matters is here for families and we're here for professionals too, and we really try to change the system and raise awareness.

Brittyn: And you've done just that and I think it's really helpful for families to be able to see themselves in these domains and how it's broken up and what child

could really resonate with one particular domain or it can be spread across all four domains or two domains or three domains and I see a lot of

my clients, I mean, of course, I know the pillars of PFD, but as you're describing them, I'm like, yep, they're, you know, kind of [00:08:00] fall into each of these pillars for

different reasons, especially for kids with

really severe sensory sensitivities on the autism spectrum, it's like, we're seeing a lot of anxiety around food and like that psychosocial domain. And then we see

a lot of sensory preferences, which really limits the amount of foods that they'll eat, like what food groups. And so we see in that nutrition domain.

And then we also see kids who have a hard time chewing because of low muscle tone and that medical reason for, you know, not being able to expand their diet. And so, I think being able to dig deeper, which is what you're doing through these pillars, because it's so, I think, easy to just say, oh, they're just a picky eater.

And unfortunately, and I know this is kind of the motto of PFD too, it's not, it's not picky eating. Yeah. Yes. That word helps describe what's happening, but it just barely scratches the surface, and I think really discredits [00:09:00] what's going on behind the scenes, because these kiddos, they can't eat.

They need the support, and when we just write it off as picky eating, we don't get to dig deeper into it, and so just personally, that's what I've really taken away from this

diagnosis, because I remember in the early days of my private practice, I mean, the diagnosis wasn't around yet, and I was always having a really hard time when I

was billing insurance, I was like, what?

What is this? Like, how do I talk about this? I can't, it doesn't, under any of this or like so now I don't bill insurance. And I want to talk about this because it's

something I don't know a ton about that we'll get to later in the episode, but now it's a billable

diagnostic code, which makes a huge difference and I wish I would have had that at the beginning of my career, cause that's where all of my clients were falling under. So...

Jaclyn: That's so true. And it validates, I think, families' experience, because I think when they're trying to either make sure their child is gaining weight [00:10:00] or they're trying to just get

nourishment and for the sake of, you know, having a mealtime even in rigid preferences or even in any other scenario where mealtimes are challenging, I think a family wouldn't say that that's picky eating. I think they may be told that that's picky eating by professionals around them or even by society maybe.

You know that it's so much more. And so I think you're right, it discredits it and it invalidates their experience to call it picky eating when we know it's a real thing. And that's exactly why we thought it was important to make this its own code. We brought the experts together and we said we need to name this because It means a lot more when there is a name, people take it more seriously.

People weren't taking it very seriously. And so in bringing the experts together, we built the diagnostic criteria. We built the framework. And then we said, yeah, let's

advocate for a code and doing that [00:11:00] also really validated what we were seeing, which was that this needed a name, because when you go through that process of

trying to get a diagnostic code, you just have to prove why it needs to be a standalone code and why it can't use all of the slew of feeding related

codes that existed before PFD and we were able to prove pretty quickly that it does need its own code.

And so that came about October 1st, 2021 was the first time that the PFD code could be used. And so you're right now when you are billing insurance, you could say this child has pediatric feeding disorder. And since the code's come out, we've been able to see are there areas where that's working?

Are there areas where that's not working? I think what we've learned is, we still have a lot of education, outreach, and awareness that we need to do with not only

the general public, but also insurance companies to help them understand what might be happening and that'll, you know, improve that. But now we actually have a name

for it, and you would be able to write it on a medical record, and I think that that's [00:12:00] really important.

Brittyn: Definitely. And, you know, the education, too, that comes with being a medical professional. The time that it takes for even just research to come out, to be taught in schools, what is that, like 10 to 20 years?

Jaclyn: It's so long!

I didn't even realize until I got into this work a little bit further that what we're seeing come out in publication like it's new research, is several, several years and iterations old.

And so it's really challenging as a professional to stay on top of what's coming out. And I think that's the case for PFD too, it being still a new diagnosis, you know, we're three years into it having an official code. But in research length or research years, like dog years, it's still very young.

Brittyn: Totally. Yeah. That's why it's important. I mean, to have this kind of education around it, because I wouldn't have known. I mean, as a dietitian, we barely

scratched the surface with pediatrics. If you really want to go into pediatrics, you have to really look for it yourself, really go and get your additional

certifications, [00:13:00] and especially if we start going to autism and sensory sensitivities, and there's just no way that any of that is just going to be naturally covered.

And so it was through my SOS feeding therapy training that I learned about you guys and was able to learn more through your organization and your virtual conferences, but anyway, it's so important, and just like you said, it is so helpful for parents, I think, having a term to put to their experience.

And this happens often, there are a lot of feeding terms, because, you know, these experiences are so common. Like food jagging, for example, is a term that parents are explaining to me, I'm like, hey, there's actually a term for that, and they're like, wow, I feel so understood, just having the name.

Jaclyn: Yeah. Mm hmm. Exactly. And knowing what's going on. Yep. Yeah. And it's interesting because we think about, at Feeding Matters, the educational pathway for professionals a lot. And you being a dietitian and with your specialty in the autism community, how did you kind of identify that you needed more feeding [00:14:00] support and how did you go about finding that?

Because I think that's a real challenge for a lot of professionals and I think that's why on the family side, it's really hard to find qualified providers.

Brittyn: Totally. You know, I was working outpatient at a clinic for children with developmental disabilities and I knew the importance of nutrition and what foods they need to be eating.

And so I was so equipped with the "why?", this is why we need nutrition. And then 90 percent of families were like, well, we can't. There's no way we can even try to introduce that. And it was like, so what suggestions do you have on expanding their diet? I'm like, repeated exposure? So it was this thing where I was like, none of the recommendations for picky eating are fitting.

None of this is working. And so thankfully it was an interdisciplinary clinic and there were OTs and speech therapists who also provided feeding therapy. And they showed me that hierarchy on the SOS, like steps to eating, and I was like, oh my [00:15:00] gosh, this makes so much sense. I have to go to this comp, like I paid my own way.

The clinic wouldn't pay for it. And I was like, I just have to go because this is just going to change I think my life and so many of my clients' lives and just coming back from

that, I was like, oh my gosh, this is the answer and then being able to find okay, there are organizations like Feeding Matters that are advocating around this because

now that I'm thinking about it, it was either 2016 or 2017. I'm pretty sure it was 2017. And that's, I know when you all were doing a lot of advocacy work to try and get

PFD into the diagnostic criteria. Yeah. That was right in the middle of the advocacy work. Yeah and so it

was almost validating for me because I was able to see okay, there is so much more to it than this.

And my brother's on the autism spectrum. So I knew he really struggled with it, but I mean, now he's 29. And at the time, you know, he was in his early twenties. And so

pediatric feeding disorder didn't necessarily fit anymore. So it was one of those things that it's totally changed how I operate in my [00:16:00] practice and

teach others and so sometimes you just kind of have to learn by doing and learning from other practitioners.

Jaclyn: Well, that's kind of what we find. There isn't an exact pathway to follow if you want to specialize in pediatric feeding. Different associations based on your

discipline, whether you are a dietitian or speech language pathologist or occupational therapist,

or even a physician or psychologist. They have kind of a pathway to follow through their associations, but a lot of times if you're an individual that wants to specialize in

this, you've got to do what you did, which is find a course, and there's many out there that fits your needs. And take it or take many courses and build your toolkit as a clinician and then practice that work.

And I think as we support families, that's a really hard thing to share with them that you've really got to ask questions to your providers. Understand how they've learned about feeding and understand what [00:17:00] coursework they've taken and how do they partner with families in this work?

And how do you as a family member feel comfortable in engaging with them in this way, because something that's so different about feeding and feeding therapy in general

is, you know, for a lot of other kinds of therapy, you can take a break. You can, you know, go on vacation for a week, but if you do that with feeding therapy, you may

have a break from feeding therapy, but you're still having mealtimes five times a day or, you know, three times a day with snacks.

So you're not really getting the break that you can with some other types of interventions for different conditions.

Brittyn: Definitely. Having that conversation, like you said, asking, where did you learn about feeding? What qualifications do you have? I was just talking with one of the members in my community a few days ago

and she was like, we've been in feeding therapy for six months. Which also in the scheme of things, you know, feeding does take a long [00:18:00] time. It does take a long time. That's another thing we've gotta change our perspective on. Mm-Hmm. Totally. She was like, we have not seen one win. I was like, okay, let's start digging into this.

Mm-Hmm. . What qualifications do they have? Because anyone could provide feeding therapy, however, to be able to really support somebody with pediatric feeding

disorder or with severe sensory issues, we really need a very specific approach. Would you mind talking a little bit to that, how that would differ and why

somebody with PFD might need more support or particular support from feeding therapy?

Jaclyn: Yeah, I think a lot of it comes to actually having knowledge and access to what pediatric feeding disorder is. Because so many times we've had families come to us

and say we've been trying feeding therapy but hasn't been working and we need to find another therapist and we do have a provider directory on our website that has

many different therapists and I think the ones on there at least understand PFD.

But when something isn't working, you got to kind of go back to square one [00:19:00] and look at it from the framework perspective of okay, do we really know where maybe

pain is coming from and why we might be trying to avoid mealtimes? Do we really have a good understanding of if there's allergies present or if there's GI problems present?

Because I think you got to get a hold of that medical side and that medical domain of the framework first. Because, anything going on in that area is probably

impacting what behavior is being communicated. It's probably impacting their feeding skill and their nutrition in other ways.

And so if we're progressing down a path of trying to do some feeding therapy and practicing exposure or practicing chewing and all of the different ways that

feeding therapy exists, if we're not looking at it holistically, we might be having bad exposure after bad exposure after bad exposure. And I think one thing I've spent a lot of time reflecting on, especially [00:20:00] recently, is how we need to identify this early.

And if we're not identifying it early, we've seen so many families go from provider to provider to provider trying to find answers.

And unfortunately that's just time lost. And honestly, more trauma, and that trauma builds over time, and then you become a child and an adult with a really bad experience with food.

And so that's something that I think would like to impact more, and it starts with the qualified providers and for anyone out there who is trying to figure out

if they've got the right provider or trying to look at what, you know, feeding therapy they need to go do, we have a list of questions on our website that might be helpful to ask a provider about their experience, about PFD just to kind of better know.

We've got to have a good fit if you're going to proceed down this path with someone.

Brittyn: I would love to put that link in our show notes and I would love to use that as [00:21:00] well because I haven't seen that list and that would be fantastic. And then other resources I'm going to put in the show notes would be the Feeding Matters provider directory, and then you also have a questionnaire as well.

Would you mind sharing what that is and who would utilize that questionnaire?

Jaclyn: Yeah, our questionnaire is a very helpful resource because if you're a family member or even a provider, really, that has a patient, but if you're a family member

that is worried about feeding, it gives you the language to describe what's happening.

But it also, you know, you're not crazy, like something is wrong. And so there's two different versions. There's a long form infant and child feeding questionnaire

version on our website that asks like 12 to 15 questions. And it's based on what age your child is. And so you go through that and you answer the questions and it

kind of shows you maybe what's typical for mealtimes at that age.

And then at the end of the questionnaire, it spits out red flags that may be an indication that we need to look further at what might be happening around [00:22:00] feeding. If you

don't have that time and you just want to go to our family roadmap, we have six questions that have been shown to have a high sensitivity and specificity for identifying pediatric feeding disorder.

And a lot of those are like, do you think something's wrong? Or, you know, how long do mealtimes take? If they're too short or too long, that's a big indicator. And so those six questions, if you screen positive for two or more of those, then that means we need to look a little bit further as well.

So that questionnaire is a huge help for families to really identify what might be going on and other times you've heard from families that they've tried to talk to their

pediatrician about it and that they might not be heard. And so I think if you're a family who has tried to do that, I also like the questionnaire because it gives you the language to be able to say

here's what I'm seeing, and this is what this organization is sharing, and we have research that backs some of this stuff up. And so then you are able to have a good [00:23:00] conversation with your provider about it, because I think sometimes they're just in such a rush that they're not really hearing.

They may just be hearing, oh, it's picky eating, and we just need to wait it out, or we just need a few more exposures. But if they see on a paper that mealtimes are taking a really long time, or that there is coughing and choking at the table, then we need to be looking a little bit deeper.

And so I think in that sense, it can really help a conversation happen too.

Brittyn: And, you know, practitioners are data driven people. And so having something on a piece of paper where it's like, we've done this questionnaire, here is this research, here

is this information and qualifications. And I think it helps us speak their language sometimes and unfortunately we have to come to the table speaking their language if they

don't have the language already to be able to identify pediatric feeding disorder. And so I tell my clients that a lot of time, we have to bring it to the table, unfortunately.

Jaclyn: Yeah, it's unfortunate, but we do.

Even I, as a parent, I now have two [00:24:00] children, my one and a half year old struggled very early on, kind of like the acute PFD side. And I realized, we do need our pediatricians to know about this, but they don't yet, and it's still so new, and so we have to be able to advocate in a way that speaks their language.

I think that's a great way to share that.

Brittyn: I did want to ask your personal experience. It sounds like, I don't know how old your child is who struggled with the acute pediatric feeding disorder.

Jaclyn: Yeah so he's a year and a half. So it was interesting because I was at Feeding Matters before I had kids and before I knew about feeding.

And so I had my first son, he's almost five. And he really taught me that as parents, we don't get told a lot about feeding. And so I think in that sense, I had

done all of this work in this world of pediatric feeding disorder, and then I realized, well, people aren't going to be able to identify pediatric feeding disorder if

we don't even know what feeding development looks like in a child.

Like we don't know. We pay attention to what it looks like on a [00:25:00] box, if they're crawling or they're walking, or we pay attention to social media, or kind of like those papers that our pediatricians give us, but we just don't know. And so, that really got me thinking about how we can raise awareness of PFD in a different way.

We need to be speaking to all parents to be aware that feeding development, it happens over time. It doesn't happen automatically. And so at any point in that development, something could go wrong. And then we need to build back those skills or go back to the PFD framework. And so he kind of taught me that.

And then George, my year and a half year old, he had a cow's milk protein allergy early on, and then a lot of, like, anatomical stuff which was preventing him

from latching. And so it took us a while to identify that, and I think me, having all this knowledge, I expected a little bit more of myself

and I've since learned a little bit more about you can't do that in that space, that's why we need our pediatricians to know but luckily we were able to identify his issues and I think for me [00:26:00] knowing

what I know and being in this organization for so long, I knew I had resources. And that's what we hope to provide for our families is we're here for you to walk this

road with you. It can feel really lonely. And so we're here with you and you have hope because of us, we have resources for you.

And you know, that part, I want to make sure families know that we're here for them.

Brittyn: And I mean, to your point, we talk about feeding at six months with your pediatrician of okay, starting solids. I don't even know that my pediatrician has really revisited. Like maybe he's been like, how's he eating?

Like, he's doing okay, he's doing fine, but I think that's really all he asked. If I didn't know what I know, I mean, my son is 21 months old, and he's definitely going through a stage where he's very particular about what he's eating. But I also know the signs of pediatric feeding disorder.

And I'm like, okay, from what I can understand, we're just having some preferences around food. We don't [00:27:00] have red flags for PFD, but my pediatrician also isn't asking. And so, I think if I didn't know these things, I think it would be really helpful for somebody to go through like a screener.

I wish there were a screener.

Jaclyn: Yeah. I hope that that screener gets into well child visits. Because I think, we've talked to pediatricians who have told us, "all we talk about is feeding. We talk about feeding all the time", but you know from the family's experience that yeah, it may be a question, but it's not a real conversation and there's not a lot of answers.

I do think there's a lot of value in being able to parent knowing about PFD because I think that was really helpful in George's experience. I think that's what made him only have acute PFD and not switch to chronic PFD because, you know, I was able to constantly be thinking about the PFD framework and so we got to the GI and we kept his relationship with food really good.

And so we were still working through some of his stuff, but he doesn't show a lot of the signs of [00:28:00] PFD because I think we've been trying to stay on top of it. Yeah, so if you were able to screen every single well visit that you went to, I know it would make such a difference.

Brittyn: Like even, even if it was like a six month, 12 month, 18 month.

Yeah, those critical points. That would be so huge and I think parents would be able to catch it early on and recognize what is happening and feel understood and

oh man, that would be fantastic. Well, could you share where both practitioners could get resources on how to get more information about PFD so that they can help so many more people?

And then where parents could also go to get these resources to help advocate for themselves as well.

Jaclyn: Yes, definitely. So on the provider side, well actually on provider and family side, I encourage everybody to go and follow us on social media at Feeding Matters. Our website is [00:29:00] feedingmatters. org.

On our website, we have lots of different materials, both for professionals and for providers. I think signing up for our newsletter is a really easy way to keep it top of mind for everybody. On the provider side, we have a lot of different webinars and videos on our website and we also have a conference.

We actually have a feeding and eating psychology summit coming up that really dives into the psychosocial domain a little bit further, both for pediatric feeding disorder and for avoidant restrictive food intake disorder, which the two cross over a lot. And then I think what's also really beneficial about being a provider in the Feeding Matters community is you do have a community of other providers.

And so I think, you know, you and I were talking before this, you kind of have to build a community because we all don't have answers and we're trying to find them

together. And hopefully Feeding Matters can be a leader in that. But, coming to us and finding others like yourself is a [00:30:00] really valuable

thing and being able to network within Feeding Matters community is helpful, and the same goes for families too. We offer families that same network of other families who

have walked this journey, either alongside you or before for you to lean on. And so for families, I think the easiest place to go besides the social media is on our website.

There is a family map that kind of asks those six questions. And then it leads you to our family guide, which is a 101 on PFD, talks about the

different tests and questions to ask. And some of those things. But then if you are struggling, we can connect you with another parent who has been there and a parent who

can spend some time on the phone with you or on Zoom with you walking through with you, and sometimes that's just preparing for an appointment.

How am I gonna be empowered enough to speak my mind during this appointment when I'm intimidated going into it? And so that program is called Power of Two and I really encourage any family who wants to talk to another family to reach out to us because we can connect you [00:31:00] with someone.

Brittyn: I learned about that program at your most recent virtual conference back in, was in April? Yeah, April. Okay. And I remember thinking, oh man, like how many of my clients would just feel understood just to be able to talk to somebody else about, you know, what they're experiencing. I think being able to talk with another parent who's been there and gone through it

is so important. And one thing I also loved about that conference, too, is that I came as a practitioner, of course, but I was really impressed because on your panels, there was always a parent advocate or somebody who has been through the experience. So you had the panel of practitioners, but then there was also the family perspective from it.

And I thought that brought a lot of really important perspective because I think as practitioners, it's easy for us to forget that that's such an important piece of the team.

Jaclyn: It's a key piece of the team. We talk about multidisciplinary care, interdisciplinary [00:32:00] care, and we think about the different disciplines, the different domains, our scope of practice and everything, but you're missing

a key piece if you're not respecting and valuing a family member in the same way that you are a physician that you're talking to or another discipline that you're talking to because they know more about their child,

they have the history. So yeah, I'm glad that you felt that come through the conference. That's something that's really important to us. Family centered care is not just a

word that we use. It's something that we live and breathe, and it's a key piece to our values and our philosophy. And we really are passionate that families get to speak on their experience.

They are experts in their experience, and I'm glad that that came through.

Brittyn: Yeah, absolutely. I loved it. And then you have another conference, is it in January? February?

Jaclyn: So we have, yeah, so this will be the first time that we're in person again since 2019. And we will always be virtual. It's important for us to be digital first to make sure that we reach those that can't come to things either for childcare reasons or travel or [00:33:00] geography reasons.

But we have an in person conference February, like end of February. And it'll be in Phoenix, which is a beautiful time to come to Phoenix if anybody wants to come.

Brittyn: Awesome. Thanks so much for sharing and you shared some great resources. I'll be sure to link them all in the show notes below. But thank you so much for being here and for sharing all of this information.

Jaclyn: Thank you so much for having me. Your passion for just children in general and kids with autism and PFD, it's just amazing. And I'm just grateful to be able to know you and have this conversation with you.

Brittyn: Thank you so much. I appreciate it. So everyone who's wanting to learn more about PFD, you can check out the show notes, follow Feeding Matters on Instagram as well.

And just check out all of those amazing resources that can really help you get the care that your kiddo deserves. And practitioners too, like, please, please look into this because we are the leaders. We are the leaders who need to be helping [00:34:00] families identify this and give them the guidance to walk through and not feel so alone.

Thank you, Jaclyn. I appreciate it. [00:35:00]

Transcribed by Descript

About Brittyn Coleman, MS, RDN/LD

Brittyn Coleman, MS, RDN/LD, is a distinguished Registered Dietitian and Autism Nutrition Expert, known for her innovative, sensory-friendly feeding approach to nutrition for children on the autism spectrum. As the founder of the Nourishing Autism Collective, and as an autism sibling herself, Brittyn brings both professional expertise and personal understanding to her work. She empowers families with her expert guidance, helping children receive essential nutrients for optimal health and development. Her strategies are tailored to the unique dietary needs and sensory preferences of each child.

Brittyn's influence extends beyond her membership site through her active social media presence and her popular podcast, 'Nourishing Autism'. Her educational content on Instagram, YouTube, and other platforms has established her as a leading voice in autism nutrition, providing valuable resources, practical advice, and a supportive community for parents and professionals. 

Brittyn Coleman, MS, RDN/LD https://www.autismdietitian.com
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