Performance Standards or Fluency Aims

Precision Teachers originally set performance standards or fluency aims based on the occurrence 
of three critical learning outcomes, retention endurance and application. In the words of 
one of the great Precision Teachers, "...in the final analysis we owe it to each behaver 
to determine levels that will ensure Retention, Endurance, and Application..." 
(Haughton, 1984, p. 96).

The acronym REAPS describes the relationship between behavior and the associated critical 
learning outcomes. Namely REAPS stands for Retention, Endurance, Application Performance 
Standards (Binder, 1996; Haughton, 1981).

Retention addresses "the relation between two behavior frequencies at two points in time, 
between which the individual has had no opportunity to emit the behavior" 
(Binder, 1996, p. 164).

Endurance describes the ability to perform a behavior over significant periods in the face 
of environmental distraction without performance decrement (Binder, 1996).

Application refers to element or component behaviors that combine or become integrated 
into a compound or composite behavior (Barrett, 1979; Haughton, 1972, 1980).

For more than 25 years Precision Teaching has worked on establishing academic performance 
standards (Maloney, 1998).

To help teachers a few years ago I searched the Precision Teaching literature to find as 
many performance standards as I could. Below you will find a PDF of my efforts. A word 
of caution, performance standards did not equal magic bullets. For example, for 
application to take place related behaviors must also occur in the students’ 
repertoire otherwise the behavior practiced to fluency cannot combine with another 
behavior. Additionally, readers should not consider the performance standard as 
written in stone. Systematic research has gone into some of the performance 
standards whereas others came from the practioners database. The performance 
standards serve as guides to assist teachers selecting appropriate frequency 
ranges for their learners. If you discover a new performance standard or find 
a modification for an existing one I would humbly suggest submitting your 
fluency aim as a chart share in the Journal of Precision Teaching and Celeration 
or sharing your discovery on the SClistserv. I hope you find 
the following performance standards useful and please feel free to email feedback.

References:

Barrett, B.H. (1979). Communitization and the measured message of normal behavior. 
In R. York & E. Edgar (Eds.) Teaching the Severely Handicapped (Vol. 4). Columbus, OH: Special Press.

Binder, C. (1996). Behavioral fluency: Evolution of a new paradigm. The Behavior 
Analyst, 19, 163-197.

Haughton, E. C. (1972). Aims: Growing and sharing. In J. B. Jordan & L. S. Robbins
(Eds.), Let's try doing something else kind of thing (pp. 20-39). Arlington, VA: 
Council for Exceptional Children.

Haughton, E. C. (1980). Practicing practices: Learning by activity. Journal of 
Precision Teaching, 1, 3-20.

Haughton, E. C. (1981, March). REAPS. Data Sharing Newsletter, 33, 4-5.

Haughton, E. C. (1984). Standards: Refining measurement. Journal of Precision 
Teaching, 4(4), 96-99.

Maloney, M. (1998). Teach your children well: A solution to some of North America's 
educational problems. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies.

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