Task C14, 15, 23, 24 - Receptive Selection

The following excerpt is from my files. I don't know the original source. If you can identify the web source, please email me. Thank you.

"KEY – MAKE TACTING MEANINGFUL

The goal should be the child’s ability to tact each item in several contexts with several pictures, real objects, and under the guidance of several people in her environment, both in intensive trial and natural environment settings. If not, you are only teaching her tacting skills and not educating her toward recovery. I would rather have a child who fully understands and can effectively tact 10 items throughout her day than a child who can tact 1000 items but only reliant on the specifics of how those tacts were taught.

If you haven't, due to circumstance or time, been able to teach the skill of tacting across all of these conditions before moving on to the more difficult skill of TFFC's , the child is likely learning what is necessary in the ITT setting, only to get to your offered reinforcement and is not finding a personal reason or benefit to learning to tact. Not only will this cause the tacting to be slow going but the process of TFFC's is going to be even slower as the concept is more difficult.

I often think back to something Juliet Burk once wrote in an email which i have saved."Did it really take a month to teach what a microwave was? I remember the frustration of taking Evy into the kitchen and asking him to show me the microwave. Over and over, he would smile at me and walk toward something, hoping to see me smile and indicate that he was walking the right way. Day after day, I pointed it out and it just wouldn't stick! Then the moment a light bulb went off (in my head, not his), and I handed him a bag of microwave popcorn and said, "Put it in the microwave." He smiled and wandered. I led him over to it, we popped it together and ate. We did it the next day, and the third day, he knew where the microwave was. The joy! A microwave!"

If you have an idea for this task that you would like to share, please Email Me at cresanna@hotmail.com or add a Comment. Thank you!