Occupational Therapy Referral Criteria

Occupational Therapists at SickKids provide outpatient assessment-based feeding services to infants and children who are experiencing a new or acute deterioration in their feeding and/or swallowing function.

Referrals can be made by a physician or nurse practitioner using Epic Care Link.

We do not provide service to infants and children who:

• are already linked, or can be linked, with appropriate community pediatric feeding supports;
• are developmentally normal with difficulty transitioning to texture/solids;
• are presenting with swallowing issues related to new skill acquisition e.g., transitioning to solids and cup drinking;
• exhibit picky eating/have limited repertoire of food taken/sensory concerns.

Infants and children who do not clearly fall into these categories will be reviewed by our referral intake committee and a decision will be communicated via Epic messaging to the referring provider in a timely manner.

Please note, we do not provide outpatient occupational therapy for sensory motor, handwriting, fine motor, gross motor or autism-based services. Please contact Ontario Health at Home or your primary care provider for alternative publicly-funded options for OT, or seek out private pediatric OT services such as Boomerang Health.

Current SickKids patients may access outpatient acute rehabilitation Occupational Therapy services through specific medical or surgical clinics including Plastic Surgery, Pediatric Medicine and other specialty clinics. Referrals to these services can be made by SickKids’ physicians or nurse practitioners.