The feeding team's primary goal is to help children reach their fullest potential by providing tools to overcome their difficulties, and be successful in their daily lives.
Meet the members of the North Shore Pediatric Therapy feeding team:
Stephanie Wells is a pediatric registered dietitian with a master's degree from Bastyr University. Her background is in pediatric gastroenterology, feeding difficulties, and critical care. At NSPT, she provides nutrition counseling and medical nutrition therapy to infants and children for a variety of nutrition-related issues. Her role in the feeding team is to ensure adequate nutrition to promote healthy growth and development, while helping families implement an ideal mealtime environment and structure.
Sara Probasco is a registered pediatric occupational therapist with her master's degree from Rockhurst University. Sara works at NSPT to provide therapeutic interventions for children who have sensory processing difficulties, developmental delays, fine and gross motor impairments, and other issues that impact daily functioning. Her clinical areas of interests are sensory integration and feeding. As a member of the feeding team, she addresses the variety of senses involved in the act of feeding and determines if a child's sensory processing abilities are impacting his or her capability to engage in feeding. Sara works with the child to increase his or her comfort level with exploring and trying new foods.
Kate Connolly is a pediatric Speech-Language Pathologist on the feeding team at NSPT. She holds a master's degree from Rush University. She works with children of all ages with articulation/speech, language, fluency, and feeding issues. Her personal areas of interest are craniofacial anomalies and pediatric feeding difficulties. As a member of the feeding team, she assesses for a safe and effective swallow as well as associated oral-motor skills. She then assists in developing a therapeutic plan to improve the feeding experience.