Unique Training Elements for this Track
Through a partnership with The Behavior Center Specialty Clinic (Florida Autism Center, a division of BlueSprig Pediatrics), the UF Health CAN clinical space houses specialized services for severe feeding disorders (e.g., Pediatric Feeding Disorder, Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder). The Pediatric Feeding Program offers multiple levels of care, beginning with intensive day treatment and transitioning to follow-up services. Our program is one of only a few facilities in the country to offer empirically supported treatment for children who have chronic feeding disorders. Trainees in this track will have the opportunity to learn about data-based and outcome-oriented intervention that is rooted in applied behavior analysis with a multidisciplinary focus. Collaboration between behavior analysts, speech-language pathologists, occupational therapists, pediatric gastroenterologists, registered dietitians, and other healthcare disciplines who participate in the care of severe feeding difficulties creates a valuable training environment in which trainees will gain exposure to the full continuum of collaborative and patient-centered feeding care. Additional opportunities include participation in case conferences, coordinated assessments with team members from other healthcare disciplines, and involvement with ongoing clinical research examining treatment outcomes, broader health indicators associated with feeding intervention (e.g., gastrointestinal symptoms, nutritional status), access to care, and other areas related to social validity.
Intensive Day Treatment (required):
Trainees will be supervised while delivering intensive day-treatment services designed to: (a) increase oral intake of a calorically and nutritionally appropriate diet, (b) decrease challenging mealtime behavior, (c) improve oral-motor skills that affect consumption, (d) promote appropriate weight gain and growth, and (e) support a caregiver’s ability to feed their child at home and in other mealtime settings. Activities will include development and implementation of individualized assessment and treatment protocols under the supervision of doctoral-level BCBAs, session-by-session data collection and graphing with data analyzed at least daily, data-based treatment evaluation and modification, treatment integrity monitoring, caregiver coaching in the clinic and in other environments (e.g., home), and collaboration with the program’s consulting pediatric gastroenterologist, dietitian, speech-language pathologist, and occupational therapist, as indicated across cases. In addition, trainees will have the opportunity to participate in the assessment process to determine a child’s candidacy for the intensive program.
Weekly Follow-Up Services (sub-track):
After children complete the intensive program, families are encouraged to continue care in the follow-up program until their child has achieved age-appropriate and developmentally typical feeding. This model of care is unique in that multidisciplinary involvement continues, but goals become more advanced and caregivers serve as the primary agents of care delivery. Trainees will be supervised while providing follow-up services, which often begin as one-hour appointments every other week and gradually fade to monthly, then every other month, until the child and family graduate from feeding services.
Activities will include implementation and modification of treatment protocols during clinic-based sessions, caregiver coaching to support implementation in the home, observation of caregivers with data collection on caregiver and child behavior and performance feedback, programming for maintenance and generalization of treatment gains across foods, settings, and feeders, and coordination of discharge planning with families and community providers. Trainees will gain experience with supervision conducted both in the clinic and via a secure, HIPAA-compliant web-based platform.
UF Health Feeding Aversion Clinic (sub-track):
Set to launch in Fall of 2026, trainees will have the opportunity to be supervised while participating in interdisciplinary feeding evaluations conducted at the UF Health Medical Plaza in collaboration with pediatric gastroenterology, nutrition, and other disciplines like speech and language pathology and occupational therapy. Activities will include caregiver interviews, review of feeding history, structured mealtime observations to observe caregiver-child interactions during mealtimes, assessment of levels and severity of challenging mealtime behavior, determination of appropriateness for behavioral treatment (including coordination of medical clearance, swallowing evaluation, and referrals for other healthcare needs), and provision of feedback and recommendations to families.
Autism Case Conference (required):
Trainees will participate in a weekly, multi-disciplinary case conference on autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Activities will include providing and receiving educational content on topics related to ASD, presenting patient cases for consultation as needed to the multidisciplinary team, and providing consultative support as a member of the multidisciplinary team on behavior-analytic recommendations for patient cases presented.