Effects of Fluency Versus Accuracy Training on Endurance and Retention of Assembly Tasks by Four Adolescents with Developmental Disabilities

Abstract

Schools are increasingly being encouraged to teach vocational skills to middle and high school students. Although extensive research exists demonstrating the benefits of fluency instruction when teaching academic skills to this population of students, few studies have examined the importance of fluency training when teaching vocational skills. Using an alternating treatments design, the present study examined the effects of fluency versus accuracy training on 4 students' fluency in completing 2 vocational tasks. Following the training phase, students completed each task during 20-and 40-min work sessions to assess endurance and retention of the trained skills. Overall, results suggest that the fluency condition produced greater work productivity.

Systematic Review of Instructional Methods to Teach Employment Skills to Secondary Students With Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities

“…In these studies, comparison effects were equal or showed negligible differences. Lee and Singer-Dudek (2012) Note. The table displays the number and percentage of dependent variables coded in each category of effects for single-case design efficacy studies.…”

A Comparison of Training Methods on the Acquisition of Automotive Product Knowledge

“…These data indicate that the fluency training group had more exposure to the training material. However, the results of one study ­indicate that even when practice is held constant, mastery‐based training may not produce fluent performance (Lee & Singer‐Dudek, 2012).…”

“…Th ese data indicate that the fl uency training group had more exposure to the training material. However, the results of one study DOI: 10.1002/piq Performance Improvement Quarterly indicate that even when practice is held constant, mastery-based training may not produce fl uent performance (Lee & Singer-Dudek, 2012 ). Taken together, the results of this study indicate that fl uency training results in better fl uency and accuracy immediately after training.…”

“…Although only the few fl uency studies mentioned have been conducted with employees in business settings, fl uency building has been shown to improve a variety of skills with diff erent populations. Th ese include elementary school children (Chiesa & Robertson, 2000 ;Cooper, 2000 ;Miller, Hall, & Heward, 1995 ;Shirley & Pennypacker, 1994 ;Van Houten, Morrison, Jarvis, & McDonald, 1974 ;Weinstein & Cooke, 1992 ); children with developmental disabilities, attention defi cit disorder, and traumatic brain injury (Binder, Haughton, & Van Eyk, 1995 ;Chapman, Ewing, & Mozzoni, 2005 ;Lee & Singer-Dudek, 2012 ;Singer-Dudek & Greer, 2005 ;Young, West, Howard, & Whitney, 1986 ); deaf children with learning disabilities (Young, West, & Crawford, 1985 ); and adult learners (Barbera, 2011 ;Bucklin, Dickinson, & Brethower, 2000 ;Johnson & Layng, 1992 ;Kim, Carr, & Templeton, 2001 ;Olander, Collins, McArthur, Watts, & McDade, 1986 ).…”

Changing Instruction to Increase Achievement for Students with Moderate to Severe Intellectual Disabilities

“…Task analytic instruction begins by breaking a task into parts or steps and then teaching each part or step to the student in sequence. Numerous research studies have been published that address a variety of topics using task analytic instruction (e.g., math word problems [Browder, Jimenez, & Trela, 2012], scientific inquiry [Courtade, Browder, & Spooner, 2010], homework completion [Hampshire, Butera, & Bellini, 2011], and vocational assembly training [Lee & Singer-Dudek, 2012]). Backward and forward chaining involve training the student step by step to complete a task, either starting by teaching the student to perform the first step in the task sequence (forward chaining) or starting by teaching the student to perform the last step (backward chaining) to a specific criterion before adding the next step to the instructional sequence.…”