Henry Learns to do Fun Stuff: A TAGteach Success Story

By Emma Wicks

My son Henry (now 11) was diagnosed with autism at the age of two and a half. Despite his complex needs and communication difficulties, TAGteach has been a simple yet effective tool for Henry and his family and tutors to help pinpoint the precise movements that enable him to get the most out of his hobbies, school, and day to day routines. 

Happiness for Henry was Paramount

Like all parents, I wanted Henry to gain the skills needed to enjoy an independent, fulfilling, and happy life. With complex special educational needs (SEN), this throws up some challenges both for the child with SEN and the parent. I qualified as a Montessori teacher in 2013 and believed in the importance of following a child’s interests and allowing them time to discover, explore and just ‘be’.

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Using TAGteach to Help Learners Acquire Spontaneous Imitation, Functional Play and Social Skills

By Roni Dunning, B.A., ABA M.Sc., TAGteach Level 2, Blossom ABA

The first time a child performs a skill that they haven’t previously demonstrated is always unforgettable! At Blossom ABA, we’ve been using TAGteach® to help our learners emit spontaneous behaviours in a number of different developmental areas such as imitation, play and social skills. While we use an audible marker, we tend to limit language to teach behaviours that we want to increase in frequency or behaviours that require a chain of steps.

How Does TAGteach Work?

TAGteach enables the teacher to mark a learner’s appropriate behaviour with a sound made using a handheld clicker (or tagger). The tag becomes a conditioned positive reinforcer through association with tangible rewards (access to a preferred toy for example) or praise if the learner finds praise reinforcing. At times, the tag sound can be combined with a small piece of a highly preferred food, a sip of a preferred drink or a token economy system, which helps learners who are being taught skills intensively to understand when they’ve finished that round of teaching and can access a preferred item or activity. We use the terms “reinforcement” and “reinforcing” when referring to things that increase the likelihood that a behavior will happen in future (Skinner, 1957). There is research evidence to support the use of TAGteach and its efficacy in teaching a number of skills, ranging from the teaching of every day tasks to children with autism, movements in sports and to teach surgical procedures to medical students (Jackson, P. A., 2014; Gabler, M., 2013; Fogel et. al, 2010; Levi et. al, 2015).

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