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.