Acquisition of toileting skills is an essential educational objective for children with developmental disabilities. However, there are few empirical reports of toilet training programs for children who have developmental disabilities and combined sensory impairments. The present studies evaluated toileting programs for two children with multiple disabilities and vision and hearing deficits. The programs featured systematic prompting, scheduling, and reinforcement procedures that were applied in a residential school setting. Each child was successfully habit-trained with results maintained 1-5 months posttraining. One of the children also demonstrated consistent, self-initiated toileting.
Children who have developmental disabilities combined with vision, hearing, or dual (deaf-blind) sensory impairments represent a challenging clinical population (Sisson & Dixon, 1990). Although there is diversity within this group with regard to developmental status, most children with such multiple disabilities present with significant deficits in intellectual and cognitive functioning. In addition, deficiencies in self-care and adaptive living skills are common.
The acquisition of toileting skills is a critical developmental milestone and one that is typically delayed in children who have multiple disabilities and sensory impairment . Behavioral training procedures have been effective in establishing toileting skills but the majority of published research has focused on the population of persons with severe-toprofound mental retardation . Although behavioral approaches have been utilized successfully with children who are multiply handicapped and sensory impaired to teach self-care skills such as feeding (Luiselli, 1988a; 1988b; Sisson & Dixon, 1986) and dressing , surprisingly there are very few published reports on the topic of toilet training .
This research evaluated the effects of systematic toilet training procedures