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Autistic Children Benefit from Precision Teaching

University Park, Pa. - Professionals working with autistic children can have a positive impact by using Precision Teaching, a method that incorporates standard units of measurement and a standard graphical display. When the professionals use performance standards, autistic children can retain skills over significant amounts of time and perform at higher rates. This is the theme of "Applications of Precision Teaching for Children with Autism," the presentation of Richard M. Kubina, Penn State assistant professor of education, at the Summer Autism Institute and National Conference on August 1.

"Precision Teaching embodies a set of methods and practice procedures promoting the systematic and precise evaluation of instruction or curricula," says Kubina. "It has evolved into more than just a progress monitoring system. Precision Teaching has been applied in classrooms for studying fluency for over 30 years."

Fluency, the combination of accuracy and speed that characterizes performance, ties into instruction for children with autism, according to Kubina. "After a child has acquired a behavior, then the proficiency, or fluency, stage begins," he said.

Published literature outlines the features of fluency as retention, endurance, and application. The fluency of an autistic child can be developed through use of Precision Teaching by measuring changes in performance frequencies and displaying the changes on a Standard Celeration Chart.

According to Kubina, the Standard Celeration Chart shows changes in a student's performance as well as changes in learning. "The Standard Celeration Chart
provides a visual display of data," said Kubina. "Research shows that teachers who use data display are more effective than teachers who do not." The hallmark of effective data display, said Kubina, is standardization. "Difference in graphs can affect interpretation of data," he said.

In his presentation, Kubina demonstrates the technical aspects of Precision Teaching and the Standard Celeration Chart. He describes the concepts of
frequency and celeration. Frequency represents a standard unit of behavior, and is a measurement of performance. Celeration is defined as the weekly change of a behavior, and is a measurement of learning.