For individuals with profound mental disabilities and additional or associated impairments in motor functioning, ability to engage the physical environment is considerably reduced. When working with students who have profound learning disabilities, it is important to understand the processes by which mental development proceeds, and circumvent the barriers to further mental development, as far as possible. The amount of research published since 1975 regarding infants and profoundly disabled children and adolescents at early developmental levels is an indication of the increased availability of relatively low-cost microelectronic equipment. In 1982, Brinker and Lewis reported on their 'Contingency Intervention Project' which gave learning disabled infants control over environmental events that co-occurred with specific behaviours. However, a key factor when learning disabled children are matched on developmental age to normal infants is that they are older and hence the mother has had more time to settle into a particular interactive pattern.