An Intensive Toilet Training Programme for a Boy with a Profound Mental Handicap Living in the Community

Abstract

Many people with a profound degree of mental handicap remain wet by day despite routine attempts at toilet training and despite favourable environments. Some recent work, which attempted to replicate Azrin and Foxx's (1971) intensive toilet training programme, but in a community setting, concluded that this programme is not feasible in such a setting. The present paper presents data for just such an intensive toilet training programme carried out with an eleven-year-old boy with a profound mental handicap in the community. The programme has been found to be highly effective, both in institutional and community settings. Differences between the use of parents as trainers and ‘professional’ trainers are discussed, as are problems of generalisation and maintenance of newly learned skills in a community setting.