Hand biting and chewing

Is it a common trait of Downs for children to chew on thier hands and fingers. We have a foster daughter and she is constantly chewing her fingers. Any ideas on how to stop this behavior?

[SimplyStar]

No this is not a comman trait at all, how old is the girl?  Positive encouragement to stop might help, cotton gloves worn as often as possible, dye them pretty colors and make her think that she looks pretty with them on.  Give her an alternative to chew on, hard rubber "fingers", talk with her as often as possible to reinforce the idea that finger chewing makes you unhappy. Make it your problem , not hers.  I once sat a young man in front of a mirror so that he could see how he looked sucking his thumb, I put pictures of smiling faces around him and showed him that the mouth cannot smile with a thumb in it. took me 3 weeks to get him to break the habit. My son developed the habit of letting his tongue protrud, I constantily told him "tongue in face" and he stopped, I used the mirror method on him at times also. Just never use punishment on a habit, constant reinforcement usually works well.