The purpose of this study was to clarify the effect of clasp design on abutment tooth adjacent to a distal extension base under the influence by the location of functional loading. The RPI clasp, the Akers clasp and the combination clasp were selected for evaluation. Tests were performed at 10Kg, 20Kg, 30Kg loads on the buccal, central, lingual, mesial and distal positions of loading platform of each mandibular distal extension partial denture. The laser reflexion method was used for three dimensional measurement of abutment movement, which is possible to measure precisely without contact. The movement in the mesiodistal(X), buccolingual(Y), and occlusoapical(Z) directions and the rotational movement(R) were measured, and in addition, the total movement (SV) as expressed by the three dimensional summation vector independent of direction was calculated. The data were analyzed using Student t-test, p<.05. The following results were obtained from this study; 1. Clasp design did not generally affect the direction of abutment tooth movement except the movement in an undesirable occlusal direction in case of the Akers clasp and the combination clasp. 2. The greater the load on the prosthesis, the greater was the abutment tooth movement, and the direction of abutment tooth movement was affected by positional loading. 3. Each prosthesis was dislodged from the test base under the small amount of load in the distal load position, and the buccal loading showed the greatest abutment tooth movement under the maximum load. 4. RPI clasp was evaluated as the most favorable design.