Your Back-to-School Guide to Feeding & Swallowing in the Schools
Hi! Carolyn Dolby, host of School of Speech, here. If feeding and swallowing in the schools is your thing—or you're thinking, “Help! I suddenly need it to be my thing” you've come to the right place.
With a new school year getting underway, I thought this was the perfect time to pull together some of my favorite School of Speech episodes and Speech Therapy PD masterclasses on all things school-based feeding and swallowing.
Think of this as your back-to-school feeding and swallowing starter pack. I've spent years doing this work in schools, and I've been lucky enough to talk about it, teach it, write about it, and learn alongside some pretty amazing colleagues. Whether you're brushing up on Pediatric Feeding Disorder and dysphagia, trying to build stronger systems, rethinking your safe eating plans, or looking for practical help with assessment and intervention, there's something here for you.
Let’s start with…
Pediatric Swallowing and Feeding in the Schools—Where Are We?
School of Speech Podcast | Guest: Emily Homer
One of my first School of Speech conversations about feeding and swallowing was with Emily Homer, a true pioneer in school-based dysphagia.
I wanted to start with the big picture. Where are we as a profession when it comes to supporting students with feeding and swallowing needs in schools? How far have we come? What are school-based SLPs being asked to do? And where do we still need to go?
I got to sit in my favorite podcast chair and talk with Emily about the past, present, and future of school-based feeding and swallowing. It's a conversation that helps put so much of what we're doing today into perspective.
If school-based feeding and swallowing is new to you, I'd start here. And even if you've been doing this work for years, it's worth stepping back every once in a while and asking ourselves: Where are we, and where are we going?
Listen to Pediatric Swallowing and Feeding in the Schools—Where Are We?
Pediatric Feeding Disorder and Dysphagia at School: Building Stronger Systems for Student Success
School of Speech Podcast | Carolyn Dolby, Host & Guest
For this episode, I did something a little different. I was both the host and the guest because I wanted to talk about something I've spent years actually doing: building school-based feeding and swallowing programs.
One thing I've learned from this work is that supporting students with Pediatric Feeding Disorder and dysphagia can't depend on having one SLP in the district who happens to know what to do. We need systems.
That means clearly defined procedures, teams who understand their roles, staff who know what to do when a concern arises, and an approach that is consistent from one school to the next.
In this episode, I take you behind the scenes of what it looks like to develop a comprehensive, district-wide feeding and swallowing program. We talk about what needs to be in place, who needs to be at the table, and one of my favorite topics: roles and responsibilities. Feeding and swallowing in the schools is absolutely a team sport, but that doesn't mean everybody has the same job.
I also share ways districts can streamline dysphagia procedures so they're safe, efficient, consistent, and actually workable across multiple schools and teams.
For me, the goal is to move away from “What do we do with this student?” and toward “We have a system for supporting our students.”
If you're the SLP in your district thinking, “We really need a better way to do this,” this is the episode for you.
Listen to Pediatric Feeding Disorder and Dysphagia at School: Building Stronger Systems for Student Success
Developing Dynamic Dysphagia Plans
School of Speech Podcast | Carolyn Dolby, Host & Guest
I stayed in both chairs for this episode because I wanted to dig into another part of this work I've spent years developing, using, and refining: how do we create safe feeding and swallowing plans that actually work?
I've written a LOT of dysphagia plans over the years, and one thing I know for sure is that a beautifully written plan sitting in a student's file doesn't do much for the student sitting in the cafeteria.
A good plan needs to be individualized, practical, culturally responsive, and easy for staff to understand and implement. Most importantly, it needs to be dynamic.
In this episode, I walk through my Eight Building Blocks for Developing Safe Eating Plans, the essential pieces I use when developing individualized mealtime plans for students with feeding and swallowing needs. We talk about safe feeding strategies, implementation and monitoring, cultural responsiveness, and ways our plans can provide opportunities for students to continue building feeding competence.
And here's the part we sometimes forget: the plan isn't finished when we write it.
Students change. Skills change. Needs change. Environments change. Our plans need to change with them.
If you've ever stared at a safe eating plan and wondered, “What exactly needs to go in this thing?” I've got eight places for you to start.
Listen to Developing Dynamic Dysphagia Plans
More Than Lunch: How SLPs and OTs Can Transform School Mealtimes
School of Speech Podcast | Guests: Margaryta Kuzmin and Lily Glasgo
School mealtimes are busy, dynamic, and sometimes a little chaotic. But they're also one of the most overlooked opportunities we have to support meaningful student participation.
Our students aren't just swallowing at school. They're having meals. They're communicating, making choices, feeding themselves, navigating sensory experiences, developing motor skills, interacting with peers, building independence, and participating in one of the most social parts of the school day.
There's a lot happening around that cafeteria table.
That's exactly why I invited Margaryta Kuzmin and Lily Glasgo to join me for this conversation. Margaryta and I bring the SLP perspective, Lily brings the OT perspective, and together we explore the distinct—and sometimes wonderfully overlapping—roles our professions can play in supporting students with Pediatric Feeding Disorder.
We talk about feeding and swallowing, self-feeding, sensory needs, and mealtime participation, but we also pull the lens back further. Feeding challenges can affect a student's safety, nutrition, attendance, learning, inclusion, independence, and access to the educational environment.
And, of course, we talk about collaboration. In the real world of schools, schedules are packed, roles aren't always clear, staff need training, and different professionals may be seeing different pieces of the same student. We share practical ways SLPs and OTs can improve communication, coordinate support, develop individualized plans, and help create mealtimes that are safer, more inclusive, and more meaningful.
This is one of the things I love most about School of Speech: bringing people from different disciplines to the same table—sometimes literally—and asking, What can we learn from each other, and how can we do this better together?
Listen to More Than Lunch: How SLPs and OTs Can Transform School Mealtimes
Books & Brave Bites: A Food Exposure Program for Students with Autism
School of Speech Podcast | Guest: Margaryta Kuzmin
Okay, this one is just fun.
It's also a great example of what can happen when we stop thinking about feeding as something separate from education and start asking how we can support feeding and learning at the same time.
I sat down with Margaryta Kuzmin to talk about Books & Brave Bites, a school-based program created by two SLPs that combines literacy instruction with structured food exploration for students with autism.
Feeding intervention can easily get overlooked in schools because of limited training, uncertainty about our role, or that familiar question: “But is feeding really educational?”
Well...let's talk about that.
Books & Brave Bites brings food exploration into the educational environment through a multisensory, non-coercive approach that pairs literacy activities with opportunities to explore non-preferred foods. Rather than focusing on “just take a bite,” students have opportunities to look, smell, touch, interact, and explore while participating in meaningful academic activities.
Margaryta and I talk about the WHY behind the program, the HOW of building and running it, and my favorite part—the SO WHAT? What happened? What did we learn? And how could other SLPs create something similar in their own schools?
If you're looking for a creative way to make food exploration functional, educationally relevant, student-centered, and actually fun, put this episode in your queue.
Listen to Books & Brave Bites: A Food Exposure Program for Students with Autism
Ready to Go Deeper?
I love hosting School of Speech because I get to ask questions, learn from my guests, challenge my own thinking, and bring those conversations to all of you.
But sometimes a podcast conversation leaves you thinking, “Okay, but HOW do I actually do this?”
That's when it's time to roll up our sleeves.
My colleague Margaryta Kuzmin and I collaborated to create two Speech Therapy PD masterclasses focused specifically on advancing school-based feeding and swallowing practice. We built them around two pretty important questions: How do we figure out what's going on? And once we know, what are we going to do about it?
Advancing School-Based Feeding and Swallowing: An Assessment Masterclass
Speech Therapy PD Masterclass | Presented by Carolyn Dolby & Margaryta Kuzmin
Let's be honest: school-based feeding and swallowing evaluations can feel high stakes.
We're thinking about safety, access, educational impact, family priorities, culture, and the realities of the school environment. Somehow, we need to pull all of that information together and answer: What is happening with this student, how is it affecting them at school, and what do we recommend?
That's exactly why Margaryta and I created this masterclass.
We wanted to take some of the mystery—and hopefully some of the anxiety—out of comprehensive school-based feeding and swallowing assessment by walking through the process step by step.
We start with referral considerations, case history, family and team communication, and the essential components of a comprehensive school-based assessment. Then we roll up our sleeves.
One of my favorite parts of the masterclass is what I call “following the bolus.” We walk through the feeding and swallowing process step by step and talk about what we're looking for, what we're observing, why it matters, and how those observations inform our clinical reasoning.
And we don't stop when the assessment is finished. Margaryta and I walk through analyzing findings, determining educational impact, writing the assessment, and developing recommendations that are clear, defensible, culturally responsive, and actually useful to the student, family, and school team.
Our goal is for you to finish the course thinking, “Okay. I know how to do this.”
If assessment is the part of school-based dysphagia that makes you wish someone would just walk you through it, that's exactly what we do.
Watch Advancing School-Based Feeding and Swallowing: An Assessment Masterclass
Advancing School-Based Feeding and Swallowing: An Intervention Masterclass
Speech Therapy PD Masterclass | Presented by Carolyn Dolby & Margaryta Kuzmin
We've assessed. We've observed. We've gathered our data. We've followed the bolus. We've determined educational impact.
Now comes one of my favorite questions: What are we actually going to do?
That's where Margaryta and I pick up the conversation in our Intervention Masterclass.
School-based feeding and swallowing intervention isn't simply about choosing a strategy. We're balancing safety, meaningful participation, educational relevance, culture, and family priorities while figuring out what support can realistically look like in a busy school environment.
We start by digging into both dysphagia and Pediatric Feeding Disorder in the school setting. What are we seeing? What does it mean? When do we assess? When do we intervene? And when do we refer?
From there, we move into something I'm particularly passionate about: building systems around the student. We talk about interdisciplinary teams, developing individualized safe eating plans, partnering with families, and creating staff training systems so feeding and swallowing support doesn't depend on one person knowing what to do.
Because a safe eating plan is only as good as the team's ability to implement it.
Then we get to intervention. We look at both indirect and direct intervention, explore evidence-informed strategies that make sense in school environments, and work through case studies that let you practice the clinical reasoning behind those decisions.
It's not just “Here's a strategy you could try.” It's “Here's this student. Here's what we know. What should we do—and why?”
If you've ever finished an evaluation, looked at all your beautiful data, and thought, “Great. Now what?”—we've got you.
Watch Advancing School-Based Feeding and Swallowing: An Intervention Masterclass
Where Should You Start?
The good news is that you don't have to start at the beginning. Start where you are.
If you're new to school-based feeding and swallowing, come listen to my conversation with Emily Homer. If you're trying to build or strengthen a district program, start with Building Stronger Systems. Working on safe eating plans? Try Developing Dynamic Dysphagia Plans. Ready to rethink the whole mealtime experience? Pull up a chair with Margaryta, Lily, and me for More Than Lunch. Looking for a creative approach to food exploration? Check out Books & Brave Bites.
And when you're ready to really dig into the clinical work, Margaryta and I are waiting for you in the Assessment and Intervention Masterclasses.
When I look at all seven resources together, they tell a pretty good story about how I approach this work: ask questions, build systems, create dynamic plans, look at the whole mealtime, make intervention meaningful, assess thoughtfully, and intervene with purpose.
That's a pretty good feeding and swallowing toolkit to have in your back pocket as you head into a new school year.
And I'm Definitely Not Done Talking About It
School-based feeding and swallowing continues to evolve—and so does my thinking.
I'll keep using School of Speech to have the conversations I think we need to be having. I'll keep teaching through Speech Therapy PD, writing about this work, presenting, asking questions, and learning right alongside all of you.
So bookmark this page. The next time you're sitting at your desk—or maybe at a cafeteria table—thinking, “I know Carolyn has talked about this somewhere...” chances are, I probably have. 😉
Here's to a new school year filled with safer eating, more meaningful mealtimes, stronger teams, and SLPs who feel a whole lot more confident about feeding and swallowing in the schools.
And as always, keep learning boldly, collaborating intentionally, and leading with purpose.
— Carolyn
