A Preliminary Analysis of Mastery Criterion Level: Effects on Response Maintenance.

Educators use a mastery criterion to evaluate skill acquisition programming for children with autism and other developmental disabilities; however, to the best of our knowledge, there has been no research evaluating how the mastery criterion level of accuracy affects the maintenance of those responses. This study investigated the effects of 3 skill acquisition mastery criterion levels (50%, 80%, and 90% accuracy) on response maintenance. Following mastery of a set of skills, maintenance was evaluated once a week for 3 to 4 weeks. Three elementary school-age children diagnosed with autism participated. Overall, the outcomes suggested that higher mastery criterion levels (90% correct) produced higher levels of maintenance responding. Additional research in this area is needed to clarify how different parameters of mastery criterion affect the generality of skills.