DoctorTessa Taylor

After completing her predoctoral internship and postdoctoral fellowship at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine/Kennedy Krieger Institute, Dr. Tessa Taylor (ClinPsych) remained on as a faculty in the Pediatric Feeding Disorders Program. This programme is the original and largest, and one of the few interdisciplinary behaviour-analytic programmes of its kind; serving the most severe and complex children from all over the world. She also interned with Dr. Louis Hagopian on the Neurobehavioral Inpatient Unit (NBU-IP) for severe problem behaviour (e.g., pica, self-injury). Dr. Taylor’s (ClinPsych) highly unique training and expertise in paediatric feeding disorders and severe problem behaviour grants her the ability to support the full spectrum of complexity and severity of feeding difficulties. She founded Paediatric Feeding International in 2015. 

Dr. Taylor (ClinPsych) has over 25 years of experience spanning a variety of ages (from toddlers to older adults), settings (homes, schools, group homes, developmental centres, hospitals, outpatient clinics), conditions (e.g., complex neurological, medical, and genetic conditions), and interdisciplinary team coordination areas (psychiatry, paediatrics, gastroenterology, allergy, dietetics, social work, speech therapy, occupational therapy, child life, education). For over 5 years, Dr. Taylor worked solely on intensive (e.g., 8 week hospitalisations) applied behaviour-analytic feeding treatment in a hospital setting with children ages 1 to 12 with a wide variety of complex developmental and medical diagnoses and concerns (e.g., autism, cerebral palsy, allergies, prematurity, Down syndrome, glycogen storage disease, tube dependence). She also provided services in the developmental playroom for outside of meal concerns (e.g., sleep, toileting, compliance, rumination, pica, aggression) and increasing adaptive skills (communication, social skills), and ran a caregiver behavioural support group. 

Dr. Taylor (ClinPsych) is a Doctoral-level Board Certified Behavior Analyst (BCBA-D). She obtained her Master’s degree in 2001 from Southeastern Louisiana University and her PhD in clinical psychology in 2010 from Louisiana State University, USA. She is a registered clinical psychologist in Australia and a former licensed clinical psychologist in the USA. She is a board approved supervisor for both behaviour analysis and psychology, and a Fellow of the Australian Psychological Society (MAPS) College of Clinical Psychologists (FCCLP). In the past, she served as the Consortium Initiative Coordinator (with Drs. Cataldo, Girolami, Piazza, & Williams) for the Association for Behavior Analysis International’s (ABAI) Pediatric Feeding Disorders Special Interest Group and was the President of the Association for Behaviour Analysis Australia (ABA Australia). 

https://paediatricfeedingintl.com/about-us/