AutismOregon.org

Precision teaching (PT) is an instructional analysis system, based on frequency, daily measurement, and use of the Standard Celeration Chart to track a student's progress and effectiveness of an instructional program. PT can be applied across any curriculum, skills and students. Precision teaching uses the notion that "the child is always right", in that, the child's responses to instruction shows how the child learns best and that the instruction should be adjusted to use that knowledge to accelerate learning.

Some examples are, progress of teaching a motor movement (Big 6+6, how many times can you grasp an item in one minute), verbal response (how fast can you say something in one minute), or learning response (how many items on the periodic chart can you identify in one minute), learning math facts, writing. and many other areas.

Precision Teaching has an emphasis on the development of accurate AND quick responses, aka "Fluency". While percent correct measures can tell us something about accuracy of responding, it does not give much information on how quickly a person can do it. (Examples of things which may be accurate, but not functional if done slowly are, responding to a greeting or dialing a phone number).

There is considerable evidence that fluency leads to "RESA"
Retention=maintaining skill even after periods without practice,
Endurance=ability to perform the skill for periods much longer than the training timings without loss of accuracy and speed,
Stability=ability to perform at fluent levels in different situations including distractions, and
Application=ability to apply the skill at fluent levels to higher level composite skills, or to similar, but not identical skills. With precision teaching you are learning skills to fluency thus increasing retention, endurance, stability and application.

While each learner's performance is individual, PT does have some guidelines, called "aims", based on collections of fluency rates which have predictive value for RESA. Some of those can be found at, http://www.precisionteachingresource.net/

A standardized semi-log Standard Celeration Chart (SCC) is used to record correct responses and errors (known as "learning opportunities" in PT). The trend lines are observed for "celeration" or changes in rate of learning, increases in correct responses and decreases in errors. The goal is to adjust instruction so that the student is able to double the rate of responses over the course of a week. The SCC simplifies analysis because it takes the "learning curve" (and learning is curved!) and converts the data to a straight line for quick and easy visual analysis.
One tutorial for the use of the SCC can be found here,
http://www.precisionteachingresource.net/

Some more information can be found here:
NEW website set up to help people interested in Precision Teaching to have a more streamlined process of connecting with PT practitioners, trainings, resources and materials. The goal is to especially simplify info-finding for prospective and new users. (There's also some additional pages including ABA and Direct Instruction.)

http://precisionteaching.pbwiki.com/

For an overview of how PT and fluency can help instruction for children with autism, see
A parent introduction to precision teaching in PDF format:
Fabrizio, M.A. (February and March 2003). A parent's introduction to fluency" Parts I and II. The OARacle, Alexandria, VA: The Organization for Autism Research."
http://www.fabriziomoors.com/WorkSamples/A_parent%27s_intro-parts_1_&_2....

Other info:
Video with Dr. Ogden Lindsley (the founder of PT) and other video samples
at Rick Kubina's website, The PT Party:
http://web.mac.com/precisionteaching/

A video of how a successful DI and PT school conducts 1 minute reading timings, courtesy of Mark Cramer and Baker Mitchell of the Roger Bacon Academy/Charter Day School, NC:
http://www.charterdayschool.com/new/resourcefiles/Reading%20Triads_0001....

For a CBM based system (which differs in the recording system and frequency of measurement), but is useful:
School Systems can contract to use an online system for tracking student learning at:
http://aimsweb.com

One of many PT-related curricula
Probes and data taking using Basic Skill Builders from Sopris West.

More precision teaching sites:
http://aimchart.schtuff.com/about_precision_teaching
http://aimchart.schtuff.com/links (list of links to information, papers, practitioners and materials),
and
The website of the Standard Celeration Society.
http://www.celeration.org

Paper on designing an instructional program based on precision teaching for children with autism (abstract only, but worth getting the full text):
Kerr, Ken P., Smyth, P., and McDowell, C.(2003). Precision Teaching Children with Autism: helping design effective programmes . Early Child Development and Care, 2003, vol. 173(4), pp. 399-410.
Abstract:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0300443032000079087