TACTILE APPROACH TO COMMUNICATION

Tactile Approach to Communication

Tactile Approach to Communication

Tacpac overview

The 'Tac' stands for Tactile Approach to Communication. The Tacpac™ collection is made up of three packs, each consisting of a music tape, a booklet about setting up sessions, and a list of items with very varying textures (about six in total) commonly found in the household/store cupboard etc. Tacpac™ was developed over ten years ago by three teachers working with a range of children with special educational needs (particularly with children who had profound and multiple learning difficulties), in special schools in London. The teachers found that some of the children they were working with weren't able to move to the music in the existing music sessions. They devised a method of touching different textures to the children's bodies to the rhythm of improvised music. And the children loved it!

Tacpac is multi-sensory process created in 1995 that can be used to promote communication and movement through touch and music. Originally designed as a process for young children with sensory impairment (e.g. deafblindness), and developmental delay, researchers, parents and practitioners have found that it can be used across a wide range of ages, through adolescence, middle age, and even in geriatric care.

The Tacpac process is based on the idea of tactile play, using the skin, the largest sensory organ in the body, as a primary means of contact. By varying the type of touch (regular / irregular, continuous / intermittent, textures, warm / cool etc), the helper provides a range of stimuli that heighten the receiver's levels of awareness and arousal and promote responses. Each touch stimulus is accompanied by a short, specially composed piece of music designed to match it in mood and enhance the experience.

Through repetition of activities in the Tacpac repertoire, the receiver learns to show responses that can be understood as, for example, like, dislike, want, reject, known, unknown; and begins to move in response to stimuli, anticipate activities, and relate to the helper. These primal responses that comprise pre-intentional and affective communication can be crucial steps towards more clearly defined intentional communication and even language acquisition.

The number of research projects around Tacpac is growing. It has found support from the RNIB (Royal National Institute for the Blind) and Sense, and has growing followers amongst MSI (multi-sensory impairment) networks. Hilary Wainer, one of the creators of the Tacpac process, continues to develop new applications and processes around the process.

Mabel Prichard is a school for children aged from 2-16 who, have a variety of special and complex educational needs. We use TACPAC in our school with children across all ages who hove profound and multiple learning difficulties, including those who also have sensory disabilities. The aim of Tacpac™ is to heighten levels of awareness and arousal and to promote responses to stimuli. For many of the children we work with, touch and responding to touch may be a primary means of connecting and communicating with others. The Tacpac™ method really helps to create a bond with these ...