Fluency and the Maintenance of Skills Related to Sex Laws for Individuals Adjudicated for Illegal Sexual Behavior
Requiring both 100% accuracy and speed at mastery can lock in accuracy but won’t guarantee fluent speed later—track and program each dimension separately.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Hamrick et al. (2021) worked with adults who had been in trouble for sex crimes.
The team used a fluency package. Learners had to answer 100% correct and reach a speed goal before moving on.
They tracked how well the adults remembered sex laws ten weeks later.
What they found
Ten weeks after mastery, most adults still scored above 80% on accuracy.
Speed was a different story. Some stayed fast, others slowed down, and the change varied by person and topic.
Hitting both accuracy and speed at first did not lock in speed later.
How this fits with other research
Rodriguez-Goncalves et al. (2021) saw the same split in teens with dyslexia. The software group got faster and more accurate, but the two skills did not move together after the program ended.
Siegel et al. (2014) found a similar gap in boys with high-functioning autism. They were super-fast on grammar rules yet scored the same as peers on accuracy.
Together these studies show that accuracy and speed can part ways once teaching stops, no matter the age or topic.
Why it matters
If you set a fluency goal, track accuracy and speed separately at every check-up. When speed drops, add short sprint drills instead of re-teaching the whole lesson. This keeps hard-won skills intact for the long haul.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Previous research has evaluated the effects of various commonly used mastery criteria on skill maintenance by directly manipulating the accuracy requirement, as well as the sessions across which these accuracy levels must be demonstrated. The current study extends this literature by including a rate dimension within the mastery criterion with a unique population. We implemented a fluency-oriented treatment package to increase intraverbal skills related to state sex laws using a multiple-baseline design across 3 target sets for 2 individuals adjudicated for illegal sexual behavior. Within this intervention package, we included 2 distinct components of a single mastery criterion: (a) accuracy (i.e., 100% accuracy across 3 consecutive sessions) and (b) speed. We evaluated how each of these measurable dimensions of behavior maintained across time. Results indicate this mastery criterion produced over 80% accuracy during maintenance probes for 10 weeks across all sets for both students. However, this mastery criterion produced idiosyncratic maintenance of rates across students and sets. These results suggest that each of these dimensions of behavior does not necessarily covary and should be conceptualized as distinct clinical targets by applied behavior clinicians. The online version of this article (10.1007/s40617-020-00496-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Behavior Analysis in Practice, 2021 · doi:10.1007/s40617-020-00496-x