If you work with young children with language needs, you’ve probably heard this before:
“He’s always been a picky eater.”
“Mealtimes are a struggle.”
“She had difficulty transitioning to solids.”
It often comes up briefly during intake, and it’s easy to move on. But it might be worth pausing.
Many clinicians have long suspected there’s a relationship between feeding, swallowing, and speech–language development. This post isn’t about fully explaining that relationship. It’s about why it matters clinically and why it’s worth paying attention to.
This Isn’t Just Background Information
Research suggests that early feeding difficulties are more common in children later diagnosed with developmental language disorders than in the general population.
Two studies by Malas, Trudeau, Chagnon, and McFarland (2015) and Malas, Trudeau, Giroux, Gauthier, Poulin, and McFarland (2017) found:
- Up to 87% of children with developmental language disorders with motor involvement had a history of feeding difficulties
- About half (48%–53%) of children with developmental language disorders without motor involvement did as well, making them 3.77 times more likely than their peers to have experienced early feeding difficulties
- Compared to roughly 20% in the general population.
Looking Earlier in Development
A more recent study by Poulin and McFarland (2025) examined this relationship further in typically developing children earlier in life, before any diagnosis.
The study followed 137 full-term infants from monolingual French-speaking families with no known or suspected developmental concerns. Feeding difficulties and language development were tracked at 8, 12, 18, and 24 months using a validated parent-report feeding questionnaire and standardized language measures. At 54 months, language was reassessed using a sentence imitation task.
The findings point to a relationship across systems, even early on:
- Poor saliva management at 18 months was correlated with smaller expressive vocabularies at 18 months.
- Children with poor saliva management at 18 months were also more likely to fall in the lower 10th percentile for expressive vocabulary at 18 months and to show less developmentally advanced language skills (i.e., expressive vocabulary ≤ 10th percentile and/or not combining words) at 24 months.
- Mirroring patterns observed in older children with developmental language disorders (Malas et al., 2015, 2017), picky eating at 24 months was the most common feeding difficulty among children with less developmentally advanced language skills at 24 months.
What Does Feeding Difficulties Look Like in Practice?
These are usually not severe disorders. They are the things parents mention in passing:
- Difficulty transitioning to solids
- Food selectivity or rigid preferences
- Drooling
- Early sucking inefficiencies
In other words, details that are easy to overlook.
Why This Matters Clinically?
1. Mealtimes are an important context for language learning.
Mealtimes provide repeated, predictable opportunities for:
- Shared attention
- Labeling
- Turn-taking
- Expansion
When feeding is going well, these opportunities tend to occur naturally.
When feeding is difficult, interactions often shift. The focus becomes getting through the meal. More direction, more prompting, less back-and-forth—so fewer opportunities for language to develop in those moments.
2. There may be a shared underlying system.
Feeding, swallowing, and speech–language systems are closely related.
The same underlying differences in motor coordination, sensory processing, or neurological organization that affect feeding can also affect sound development, word production, and early language growth.
What This Means for You as a Clinician?
This doesn’t mean turning every case into a feeding assessment.
You might:
- Routinely include feeding history in your intake
- Follow up when parents mention feeding difficulties
- Use feeding history to inform your clinical reasoning
- Recognize mealtime as a potential intervention context
The Takeaway
You’ve likely already noticed the connection between feeding, swallowing, and speech–language development. The difference is treating it as clinically meaningful, not incidental. Sometimes, that small detail in the intake is telling you more than it seems.
References:
Malas, K., Trudeau, N., Chagnon, M., & McFarland, D. H. (2015). Feeding–swallowing difficulties in children later diagnosed with language impairment. Developmental Medicine & Child Neurology, 57(9), 872–879. https://doi.org/10.1111/dmcn.12749
Malas, K., Trudeau, N., Giroux, M-C., Gauthier, L., Poulin, S., & McFarland, D. H. (2017). Prior history of feeding-swallowing difficulties in children with language impairment. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 26(1), 138–145. http://doi.org/10.1044/2016_AJSLP-15-0171
Poulin, S., & McFarland, D. H. (November, 2025). Insight into feeding-swallowing difficulties disrupting language development in typically-developing infants from 8 to 54 months. Poster presented at the Annual American Speech-Language and Hearing Association Convention, Washington, DC.
AI (ChatGPT & Claude) was used to assist in the creation of this blog. All content was reviewed, edited, and approved by human author(s).