SummaryIt was the purpose of this study to develop a tool to measure tactile contact, record these contacts during therapy, and compare the therapist's evaluation of the child's progress with the measurement of the child's tactile contacts with the therapist. The tool and measurements were necessary in order to determine if the progression toward trust, as defined by Erikson, could be measured by observing tactile interaction between a non-verbal child and her therapist (1).The results of this study suggest that fairly simple procedures can be developed for assessing changes in a child's sense of trust of a nonverbal level in a therapeutic situation.