The Role of Skill Acquisition Specialists in Talent Development

This chapter provides insights into the roles and impacts of Skill Acquisition (SA) specialists embedded across the Talent identification and Development (TiD) pathway in Australia. Applied insights across Paralympic, Olympic and professional sports pathways provide coaches, SA specialists and National Sporting Organisations (NSOs) with examples of the value and impact an SA specialist can have on the development and refinement of their programs. Readers will gain insights across a range of themes, including the importance of immersion in performance contexts, application of SA principles in high-performance environments, as well as challenges and opportunities in test design. This chapter provides insights into the roles and impacts of Skill Acquisition (SA) specialists embedded across the talent identification and development pathway in Australia. It overviews the roles and skills of the SA specialist, and provide multiple 'applied insights' across Paralympic, Olympic and professional sports pathways. The chapter provides coaches, current and future SA specialists, as well as National Sporting Organisations with some examples of the value and impact an SA specialist can have on the development and refinement of their programs. Then the chapter highlights areas of research for specific stages of the pathway and provide a series of applied insights by providing short research summaries. While more is known about the SA specialist's role in high performance, there has been little discussion of their potential role in talent identification. [Publisher's website].