Sheri Mortola is a licensed occupational therapist with advanced practice in feeding and swallowing. She has specialized in pediatric occupational therapy for over 30 years, with emphasis on optimizing oral-motor/feeding, fine motor and self-care skills with children ages birth to 21 years. She currently works at California Children’s Services in San Luis Obispo, and for Central Coast Early Intervention Services, where she focuses on feeding therapy with infants and toddlers. She has gained many years of experience working with children with a variety of diagnoses, including cerebral palsy, high risk premature infants and toddlers, cleft palate, short-gut syndrome, pediatric oncology, and a variety of syndromes which include oral-motor / feeding complications. Ms. Mortola is certified in neurodevelopmental therapy (NDT) for children with cerebral palsy, has completed extensive coursework in pediatric feeding and swallowing, and integrates an eclectic variety of strategies into her treatment approach to help optimize results and encourage joyful eating! 
 

Let’s talk about infant feeding… 
What are the mechanics involved, and what types of difficulties are we seeing? What are the “red flags” that arise early and through the developmental stages? This talk will briefly address typical feeding development, then look at what happens when a newborn has difficulty with breast or bottle feedings, and then potentially with transitioning to solid foods. We will discuss specific difficulties, and oral-motor / feeding strategies to help address them, while supporting parents and babies to become healthy, happy eaters!