Automatic prompting to reduce persistent tongue protrusion in a woman with severe to profound mental retardation.
This study assessed whether an intervention approach relying on auditory prompting delivered automatically through a portable device was effective to reduce tongue protrusion in a woman with severe to profound mental retardation. The device involved (a) an optic sensor, i.e., a miniphotocell kept under the lower lip with medical tape, (b) a small signal transmission box, and (c) a Walkman for presenting the prompts. Initially, the automatic prompting condition was combined with occasional praise from a research assistant for having the tongue in the mouth. Analysis showed that the occurrence of tongue protrusion dropped from about 65% of the observation time during the initial baseline to less than 5% through the intervention. The study lasted 4.5 mo.
Lancioni
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GE
Department of Psychology, University of Bari, Via Quintino Sella 268, 70100 Bari, Italy. g.lancioni@psico.uniba.it
Smaldone
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A
O'Reilly
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MF
Singh
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NN
Oliva
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D
D000328:Adult; D001521:Behavior Therapy / Q000295:instrumentation*; D003631:Day Care, Medical; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008607:Intellectual Disability / Q000523:psychology / Q000628:therapy*; D017010:Reminder Systems / Q000295:instrumentation*; D014061:Tongue Habits / Q000523:psychology / Q000628:therapy*; D016896:Treatment Outcome