turtles

Just found out about this concept. Basically, adapting clicker training to use with children - and adults, and any other age of student.

This idea is REALLY interesting. My initial reaction was one of confusion, but I have come to realize that this is because I have been looking at clicker training as more of a means of communication with an animal, that works on top of the framework of teaching by succession. However, on further thought, I realize there's no other way of teaching by succession that works exactly the same as marking. You can describe a position until you're blue in the face, and even how it feels for you when you're in it, but the only way for someone (including animals in 'someone') to know that they're assuming that position is to be told EXACTLY when they are in it - by marking.

What I'm wondering is - for now it only seems to be used to teach skills. In dogs we now see it being used to train positive general behaviors, reduce anxiety and reactivity and other negative reactions and behaviors. Can we do this with people as well? I would expect so, and I think it would be especially helpful with autistic children/people, where it's already being used to a lot of effect to teach skills. I hope we'll see it moving in that direction very soon.

In the meantime, there's an article on the site about using TAGteach with yourself, which I think sounds like a wonderful idea and I will be trying immediately. I've always had a very difficult time learning anything that doesn't come to me naturally (I was not terrible at the clarinet because I hated it, I was terrible because the basic steps that I was supposed to learn by did NOT work well for me at all, and when I tried to communicate this what I got back was 'try harder, practice more'), and I hope this might help. At the very least, breaking things down in a clerical way entertains me (to demonstrate this, I have a 'pokemon' and a 'monster rancher' folder on my desktop, each filled with excel and word files...)