Teaching motor responses to a child with trisomy 18: A preliminary study

Trisomy 18 (T18) is a congenital genetic disease that causes multiple impairments, mainly in motor functioning. Few studies have investigated behavioral interventions with individuals with T18. In the current study, we tested an intervention to teach basic motor responses to a 30-month-old boy with T18. He had severe hypotonia and emitted only a few uncoordinated movements of his head and arms. We taught him a grasping response using a manual guidance procedure that included repeating the movement with full manual guidance 30 consecutive times and then recording independent responses. We then taught turning the page of a book, pressing a button on a toy, and hammering responses, sequentially, using an adapted version of the same procedure within a multiple-probe design. The participant learned each target response at a progressively faster rate. We discuss the potential use of this procedure for children with T18 and other severe motor restrictions.