Brief report: An evaluation of TAGteach components to decrease toe-walking in a 4-year-old child with autism.

Fabio et al. (2014) worked with one 4-year-old boy with autism who walked on his toes. They tried two ways to fix it: correction alone, or correction plus an audible "tag" sound.

Each time the child took a flat-footed step, the teacher either said "walk on your feet" or said it while pressing a clicker-like device that made a short beep. They counted how many steps were flat-footed each day.

The beep plus correction won. Toe-walking dropped faster and stayed low when the sound was part of the deal.

Correction alone helped a little, but adding the audible tag made the change bigger and quicker.

Wilder et al. (2025) extends this idea. They swapped the beep for a silent wrist vibration and tested older kids. Toe-walking still fell to near zero, showing the trick works across ages and gadgets.

Arnall et al. (2022) asked a similar question with adults learning dance. They found extra vocal praise added nothing; the simple tag sound carried the load. Together, these studies say the quick conditioned signal—not the chatter—does the teaching.

Vanderkerken et al. (2013) meta-analysis backs the plan. Pooling 52 studies, the largest drops in stereotypic behavior came from packages that mixed an antecedent prompt with a clear consequence—exactly what Angela used.

If you have a preschooler who walks on toes, pair your correction with an immediate, neutral sound—clicker, tag, or phone beep. Keep the wording short and deliver the sound the instant the heel touches the ground. The sound acts like a tiny paycheck; it tells the child "that step was right." No extra praise needed. Try it for one week, track flat-footed steps, and you should see the toe-walking fade without tears or tight braces.