Misunderstanding of the principles of behavior and the overuse of aversive stimuli are common to many educational situations, including teaching complex behaviors to children with special education needs. Derived from behaviorism and studied by experimental analysis of behavior, applied behavior analysis uses dozens of evidence-based methods and techniques to teach new complex skills to variety of learners. This literature review presents selection of published studies of teaching complex behaviors by successive approximations and differential reinforcement. Teaching with Acoustic Guidance (TAG) method, which uses shaping as its major component, proved to be an effective intervention across educational settings. Examples from seven studies focusing on TAG application in general and special education settings are discussed.