Vocational Skill Fluency Through Frequency Building

Employment offers many important benefits yet the majority of adults with disabilities are not represented in the workforce suggesting more research is needed on evidence-based vocational training for adults with disabilities (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2024). The evidence base for improving current vocational training practices can be expanded through more research on fluency-based instruction and precision teaching. Precision teaching has been demonstrated to improve skill repertoires in a number of academic settings but its application for vocational skill acquisition is still emerging. The present study evaluated precision teaching as a tool to teach employment skills and extended Cohen (2005). Thus, the purpose of this study was to determine the effects of precision teaching with frequency building on the acquisition of job skills for adults with disabilities and examine the effects of training component skills using frequency building at a simulated training site on composite skill performance at the job site requiring the vocational skill. The results suggest frequency building was successful at improving vocational component repertoires. Evaluations of fluency outcomes after aims were met found degradations in participants' component performances. Finally, maximizing the effects component skill fluency has on related composite repertoires may require composite skills to be explicitly trained.