Tacpac is a communication activity resource for helping people with sensory or neurological impairment, developmental delay, profound and multiple learning difficulties, tactile defensiveness, and limited or pre-verbal communication. We also use Tac Pac to develop body awareness and basic interaction skills which includes intensive interaction.
It provides a structured, emotionally safe framework for the 'receiving partner' to make contact with their own bodies, their environment and other people, and develop a relationship with these.
The 'giving partner' ensures that each tactile experience is well organised and sensitively offered, and adjusted to suit the receiving partner's responses.
What happens?
Tacpac begins with the simple sense of touch with a familiar, easy-to-get-hold-of, everyday object, such as a kitchen sponge, a wooden spatula, or some furry fabric.
The experience is then enhanced through the principle of 'sensory alignment'.
Pieces of music have been specifically composed to match the texture, character, and even the emotional quality of the touch experience. The activity and object is announced on the CD before each piece of music starts. The receiving partner hearswhat they seeand what they feelon their skin: sensory alignment - and sensory reinforcement for seeing, hearing and touching.
Through linking what becomes familiar music with objects, actions and people in a pattern of different activities, the partners communicate with each other.
Each Tacpac session lasts around half an hour, and consists of 6 of these experiences in a sequence carefully planned for maximum variety of stimulus, always ending with a relaxing piece of music.