EFFICACY OF TWO TREATMENT APPROACHES TO REDUCE TONGUE PROTRUSION OF CHILDREN WITH DOWN SYNDROME

Abstract

Five children with Down syndrome aged between 21 and 31 months, all of whom demonstrated habitual tongue protrusion, were randomly assigned to receive either oral-motor treatment or behavior modification. Tongue posture of all three children who received oral-motor treatment improved. For two of these the improvement leveled off after treatment had ended, but the third continued to show improvement. One of the two children receiving behavior modification showed improved tongue posture during treatment and maintained the improvement, but for the second there were insufficient data points to draw firm conclusions. Both forms of treatment appear to be effective, but further study is needed before definite conclusions can be made.