Martha: We are very lucky to have Karen Pryor with us today.

Karen Pryor is the founder of modern force-free training. She pioneered marine mammal training and dog clicker-training. It is her vision, persistence and generosity of spirit that has brought us here today, with the application of this incredible technology for the betterment of the lives of families living with autism.

Karen Pryor along with Joan Orr and Theresa McKeon are co-founders of TAGteach. This is a rare opportunity to have all three of them together on one call. I’d like to start by saying, “Thank you Karen for all you have done! Your work and your words have changed my life and changed my son’s life. We are profoundly grateful.” Karen has the floor now and we are ready for questions.

Karen Pryor: A lovely presentation, Martha. I’m a great admirer of yours. I think we first met at a Precision Teaching conference years and years ago. You stepped into applied TAGteaching with Douglas and it was so difficult, and you did it beautifully. I think you have cracked open a new window for all the parents who have had to struggle to do it themselves. The system has kind of left it to the parents. While they say, “We can help your child, we can teach your child to do this and that,” but if I want the child to sleep through the night I want to know how to stop him from screaming. There hasn’t been a guidebook for that, until your book came along. So I really congratulate you.

My own experience with children with autism has been with children at the New England Center for Children. I spent eighteen months teaching what was then just clicker-training, trying to teach the teachers how to use this. It’s a wonderful tool for anybody who doesn’t understand what you mean when you tell them to do something. It’s the same for teaching sports or any physical activity. You may not understand the words, but you can quickly understand when you got a marker for doing it right. Thank you Joan and Theresa for putting a webinar together like this too.

I am open for questions.