TAGteacher Tale: TAGteach for Physiotherapy After Brain Surgery

By Lynette Cole

I never thought of myself as being a TAGteacher.  I work with my rescue dogs to give them good manners before they are adopted so I have always thought of myself as an amateur clicker trainer.  In October of 2011 my husband had brain surgery.  This was not his first but it was his most difficult.  Because of balance issues before surgery a physical therapist was sent to evaluate and work with him after surgery.  Everything seemed to be good except for dragging the toes on his right foot.  The therapist and I were walking him around the hospital floor.  She had to keep reminding him to lift the toes on his right foot so they would not drag.  I had been exposed to TAGteach at 3 previous Clicker Expos.  About halfway around the floor it came to me that I could fix this!  I had never done this before but knew it would work.  I told them I would be right back and ran to his room.  I retrieved my clicker from my purse and caught up with them at almost the same spot.  He and I had talked about clicker training and TAGteach.  I told him “The tag point is toes up.”  The physical therapist looked at me a little funny so I told her he understood what I said and repeated it to him.  As we started to complete the trip back to his room I tagged him for the correct toe position.  I felt like this would teach his brain and foot what the new normal was.  When we returned to his room I started to explain what I was doing to his physical therapist.  I had my laptop with me so I found the YouTube video Joan Orr had submitted about teaching a little girl to high jump.  She watched it and seemed interested.  The next day the three of us did the walk again.  This time I only had to repeat the tag point once and tag about 3 times as we got close to his room.  The therapist seemed impressed.  When he was discharged physical therapy said he was doing too well and they could not do anything more for him.  When we returned home he had an order for physical therapy in case things came up they had not seen.  He was evaluated by the therapist in our hometown and was told the same thing.  “We cannot do anything for you.  You are doing too well.”  He has not had this problem since.  We could not be happier with the outcome.

I'm In Charge Mom!

We love this video sent to us by Alena Van Arendondonk. This is commentary by Claudia, an interpreter at a clicker training seminar presented by Alena Van Arendondonk and Laura Van Arendondonk Baugh. Claudia saw the value of this approach and wanted to try it with her kids. Alena and Laura Baugh are also TAGteachers and were able to give Claudia some pointers on applying this at home.

Here is what Alena said:

I told you last summer about Claudia, our interpreter in Mexico who was so impressed by the peaceful nature of clicker training with dogs that she bought a clicker to use with her five-year-old twins. The day after that happened, she was translating for Jesus Rosales-Ruiz (who was speaking at the same workshop we were), and we caught her during a session break and asked how things were going with her kids.

She started talking, and we were so impressed by her enthusiasm that we asked if we could record what she said and share it with the TAGteach community.

Claudia started by having her daughter tag (click) her which immediately gave control to the child and motivated the child to want to be tagged (clicked) herself.

Here is the interview with Claudia (it is quiet so you may need to turn up your volume).

TAGteach vs Clicker Training

By Karen Pryor

Are you a TAGteacher? Add some clicker savvy to your tool kit.

Are you a clicker trainer? Add TAGteach know-how to your dealings with people.

What's the difference?

Clicker training is a name for marker-based training with animals. TAGteach is a name for marker-based training with people.

For the past eight years, these two branches of reinforcement technology have been maturing side by side. Both systems use reinforcement instead of correction. Both teach you to use clear and consistent cues, sharp observation, and excellent timing. Both break down behavior into small units, and reinforce one step at a time. Both teach new behavior in fast, brief, and intensive sessions—not in long repetitive drills.

The big difference is that dogs can't talk and people can.

Clicker trainers rely on the fundamental tools of operant conditioning, such as shaping, primary and secondary reinforcers, behavior chains, reinforcement schedules, and conditioned stimuli or cues.

TAGteachers can talk to their students. TAGteaching uses conditioned reinforcers as feedback. The information itself is reinforcing, so 'backup' reinforcers (food, money, etc.) are often not needed at all. TAGteach shows you, the teacher, how to control your own verbal behavior. We learn to deliver instructions, TAGpoints, and verbal reinforcers using minimal, specific, and consistent wording in a reinforcing way. 

 
What more do we need?

What's been coming home for me lately is that we need each other more than we knew. Clicker trainers are sometimes baffled by how to get cooperation from human beings, yet every animal we train has people attached: owners, shelter staff, zookeepers, veterinarians. We also have co-workers, supervisors, and recalcitrant offspring, just like the rest of the world. Clicker trainers really benefit when they learn more about TAGteaching.

TAGteachers could use some clicker input, too. What exactly we TAG folks need to know depends on what we are teaching. For example, musicians receive huge benefits from skilled use of back-chaining, but don't need complicated reinforcement schedules. Working with people on the autism spectrum involves capturing, building duration, and using variable schedules to extend new skills into real-life situations. Sports coaches need to learn more about shaping—how to break down behavior into separate elements, to focus on just one element at a time, and to sequence those elements effectively.
Where can we learn more?

I'm finding that groundbreakers in new areas of application do especially well if they have both a TAGteach exposure and a good clicker exposure. And guess what? Now there's an easier way to get that.

Learn TAGteach

TAGteach International offers an online course for independent TAGteach learning.

The course has been upgraded and newly designed, and it's easy and fun. An online mentor is available for questions and help. The course is designed to take about four weeks of your spare time.

Learn clicker training

Last month Karen Pryor Academy (KPA) launched a Dog Trainer Foundations course, an online course for learning clicker training independently. This course is also easy and fun. There's an online teacher, and a bulletin board for help from other students. The Dog Trainer Foundations course is designed to take about eight weeks of your spare time.
Start the New Year with a new adventure

Are you a TAGteacher? Add some clicker savvy to your tool kit.

Are you a clicker trainer? Add TAGteach know-how to your dealings with people.

Want more?

Become a KPA Certified Training Partner with the professional-level Dog Trainer Program. Become a certified TAGteacher with the TAGteach International certification program.

TAGteach Glossary of Terms

Applied Behavior Analysis

The field of science from which TAGteach and other reinforcement-based teaching and training technologies have been developed.

Behavior

Physical activity in general; or a specific movement or group of related movements (‘a behavior’).

Conditioned Reinforcer

Any stimulus that has acquired positive reinforcing properties through association with other reinforcers such as food, praise or success.  [The tagger is a conditioned reinforcer -providing a positive stimulus that occurs simultaneously with a desired act or response.]

Focus fatigue

Mental fatigue that occurs when a tag session is too long for a particular learner.

Focus Funnel

A technique used in planning and teaching.  Beginning with a broad lesson, information is reduced into more concrete directions and then reduced again to a precise tag point. (Also see reverse focus funnel)

Incompatible behavior

Short for differential reinforcement of incompatible behavior (DRI). Eliminate a designated behavior by strengthening other behaviors that are incompatible with it.

Operant Conditioning

Any procedure by which a behavior becomes more or less likely to occur, depending on its consequences. [In TAGteach, the consequences are always positive and desired responses become more likely to occur.]

Peer Tagging

Student-to-student tag configurations and activities.

Point of Success

A behavior to start or to repeat, for which the student is guaranteed a tag.

Positive Reinforcement

A procedure in which a behavior is paired with a desired stimulus or event that will increase the chance of the behavior happening again in the future.

Reverse Focus Funnel

Deliver the least amount of information necessary for success first (tag point). Once the behavior has been accomplished, and the learner is more confident, additional information can be delivered.  This is useful in situations where too much information may overwhelm the learner and cause a loss of concentration. 

Shaping

An operant learning procedure in which small increments of a desired response are reinforced.  By reinforcing some small response, and then selecting stronger or longer occurrences, one can ‘shape’ or build a more elaborate behavior.

Stimulus

Something in the environment that can be sensed - a sound, an object, a color, etc. A discriminative stimulus is something the learner can perceive which indicates an action to be taken (for example a red light is a stimulus to step on the brake).

Marker

Something which "marks" or identifies a desired action.  Typically a TAGteach marker emits a brief, distinct, uniform stimulus used to pinpoint movement as it is happening; a click from a ball point pen, a clicker, hand clap, a finger snap. Some Smart phone applications provide appropriate marker tones.  

Tag

As a verb it is the action of marking someone's correct behavior (as in “tag for each blink”).  As a noun, it means the mark that is placed on a correct behavior (as in “You got 5 tags today!”). (see Marker)

Tag Phrasing

The wording used for preparing and delivering tag points (see WOOF)

Tag Point

The specific aspect of a behavior that when/as performed will receive the audible mark (tag). (see WOOF for tag point criteria)

Tag Triangle

The three components of the TAGteach process: Identify, Mark and Reinforce.

TAGteach

TAGteach is a protocol that promotes positive interactions for increased productivity and success. The acronym TAG stands for Teaching with Acoustical Guidance and refers to the audible marker, a key tool used in the system designed to highlight success. The TAGteach protocol also includes tools to deliver information, reduce inefficient language, assess performance, create confidence and deliver positive reinforcement.

Tagulator

A device made from beads that slide on a string that allows the teacher or learner to keep track of the number of tags they have earned or given.

Three try rule

If a learner fails to perform the designated tag point three times, the teacher creates and delivers a more achievable tag point.  The three try rule is more of a guide than a rule. Some learners want to work things out for themselves and will try several times without getting discouraged. Others would rather take very small steps forward and succeed nearly every time.

Value Added Tag Point

A single tag point in which more than one problem may be resolved.  [e.g., The tag point “Put keys in pocket”, would keep the keys from being misplaced and from being locked in the car.)

WOOF

The acronym defining the four criteria for a tag point: What you want, One criterion, Observable and definable, Five words or less

 (Some technical definitions are adapted from Learning and Behavior.  Third Edition, by Paul Chance, Ph. D.  Brooks Cole, Pub. Pacific Grove, CA.  1994)                                                 

TAGteach Terms - The Official List

Developing TAGteach required us to make up some new terms so as to give TAGteachers a way to discuss what we are doing and to allow us to communicate more effectively with our learners.

This is the first of a two-part blog post about the TAGteach lexicon. This first part simply lists the terms the way the terms should be used. The second part will include definitions of these terms and some additional terms used by TAGteachers.

TAG (as acronym for Teaching with Acoustical Guidance)
TAGteach
TAGteacher
TAGteaching
tag (as noun or verb)
tagger
tag triangle
tag point
tagulator
focus funnel
point of success
three try rule
WOOF

If you are writing an article for publication in print or online these terms should be followed with the TM (superscript) to show that they are trademarked terms. This only needs to be done the first time a term is used in the document.

From the Archives - High Jump Practice

Here is a note from Joan to Theresa from Jun 9, 2003, describing the first group high jump practice:

Tried tagging with high jump yesterday. It was good. We used it during individual jumps when they raised their non-jumping knee to waist level during the take-off. They all did it correctly on the first turn - the coach was very impressed. Then we raised the bar 2 inches (still at a low height that they can all clear) and they fell apart. More than half of them forgot about the knee drive and then they improved after a couple of turns. Major mental component with high jump - the bar is very intimidating. All the kids have got the basic idea of throwing themselves backward over the bar - which is very impressive because it is not easy and they had only had one practice before this. 

Next practice we will work on having them straighten out the knee that they bent. Now that they are into the idea of bending the knee they keep it bent all the way through the jump and this causes their backs to roll rather than arch. We will tag them for straightening the non-jumping leg after the inital knee drive and hopefully this will cause them to be in laid out position as they go over the bar. Then we can work on the arch. 

There are about 16 kids and only 2 half hour practices left before the meet. Even with tagging there is is not nearly enough time to develop all the aspects of the skill. According to what I have read on the internet, 90% of high jump technique is in the curved run and take-off. The athlete is supposed to run a curve for the last 5 strides that is part of a perfect circle (radius to be determined for each individual on the basis of stride length), while leaning into the circle so that at the takeoff the athlete is leaning away from the bar. The translation of power from the curved approach to the vertical jump is supposed to result in the spin in the axis perpendicular to the bar that results in the body going over the bar backwards without specific effort put into the spin. Try explaining this to an 8 year old! I think we will have to use cones to delineate the approach, since most of them (except Jennifer and a couple of the older boys) want to run straight rather than a curve. The coach put up one cone (there were no others available) for them to run around and many of them ignored it and went on the wrong side. The coach was very nice and patient with them. 

As always there are quite a few gymnasts on the team and they were very happy to see me with a clicker! I definitely notice that, like dogs, kids become "clicker wise" and learn faster than naive kids. Some of the kids have now been tagged for gymnastics, volleyball, long jump and high jump and these kids catch on much faster than the others. Of course the gymnasts have super body awareness and coachability, so this is probably also a major factor.

Here is a video showing the final tagging protocol we used for high jump:

Basic Principles Article #11 - The Point of Success

By Joan Orr, M.Sc.

What is the Point of Success?

The point of success is something the learner can already do and where he is guaranteed to earn a tag. For example a kindergarten student can certainly pick up a pencil with her writing hand. The first tag point in teaching letter formation could be “pencil in writing hand”. Starting with the point of success ensures success on the first try and provides a rewarding introduction to the lesson and to the method of TAGteach if this is the first experience with it. The point of success will gradually change as the learner gains competency. The point of success is a place to return to if the learner is having trouble with more difficult tag points.

Finding the Point of Success

In some cases the point of success is obvious. For example “stand still” or “hands folded on desk” are things that it is reasonable to expect that most learners are able to do at least for a moment or two. If you are a coach or teacher that has been working already with your learners you probably have a good idea of what each learner can easily do. With new learners or a new task, you need to evaluate their current status with the skill or behavior you are trying to teach. Ask them to attempt the skill and just observe without comment. Find something they are already doing correctly or something that is very easily accomplished and make this the first tag point. For example in teaching a learner to play the piano the point of success may be to sit at the keyboard with middle C and belly button lined up.

Sometimes the point of success is more difficult to find. If you are teaching a complex skill and the learner seems to be doing many parts of it incorrectly or is missing a key aspect, finding a point of success may be more of a challenge. For example, you are teaching an athlete to high jump using the Fosbury flop method. This requires the back to be arched while clearing the bar, but the athlete is going over in more of a sitting position without the proper arch. Where is the point of success when the main component, the arch, is nowhere to be seen? In this case in order to find a point of success, you need to make the task easier. Have the athlete lie on his stomach and push up with his hands while his hips remain on the ground. In this position it is easy for him to achieve the tag point “arch back”. He could also achieve this position lying on his back on the crash mat with either his upper or his lower body hanging over the edge of the mat. Isolating an element from the skill in this manner allows the athlete to experience the feeling of the position and have it be solidified by hearing the tag without having to try to do all the other complex parts of the skill. After a few repetitions of “arch back” isolated from the skill, move on to putting this back into the skill. To ensure the best chance of success, give the athlete as few other components to think about as possible. Remove the bar and ask him to jump from a standstill backwards onto the crash mat with the tag point “arch back”. This removes many other variables and gives him the opportunity to put all his focus into the one key element. You can gradually add one step then two steps, then the full run and finally replace the bar. If the athlete begins having trouble, go back to the most recent point of success and build up again from there. Start each new session with a point of success identified from the previous session.

Here is a video that illustrates this example. In this case we were able to isolate the point of success by having the athlete jump backwards from a standstill. We need to return to this point of success several times during the course of the training session.

We invite you to join the TAGteacher discussion group at www.tagteach.com to meet others who are implementing TAGteach in various disciplines and to see the list of upcoming TAGteach seminars.