An extension and refinement of telephone emergency-skills training. A comparison of training methods.
Have kids talk themselves through emergency calls and pick their own tiny reward—it keeps the skill without extra work later.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team taught kids how to call 911 and give key facts.
They tried three ways: self-talk plus the child picked a tiny reward, self-talk plus an adult handed out a reward, or plain step-by-step drill.
Each child got all three methods in a rotating order so the results could be compared.
What they found
Every method worked during teaching.
The big win came later.
Kids who talked themselves through the call and then gave themselves a sticker or candy kept the skill longer without extra coaching.
How this fits with other research
Lord et al. (1986) showed thinning rewards to mystery schedules also keeps skills.
The 1988 study adds a simpler twist: let the child pick and deliver the reward.
Reiss et al. (1982) used say-do rules in special-ed rooms with big gains.
Attwood et al. (1988) moves the same idea to safety skills with regular kids, proving the trick travels.
Lloyd (2002) says correspondence work faded after 1992; this paper is one reason to bring it back.
Why it matters
You can lock in safety skills fast.
After you teach the phone script, have the child say the steps aloud and then pick a tiny self-reward.
No need to keep handing out tokens later.
Use this pair in schools, clinics, or homes the next time you run a safety program.
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Join Free →After the child rehearses the 911 script, ask, "What tiny prize will you give yourself if you get it right?" and let them hand it over immediately.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
Three experiments were carried out to teach children how to respond to home emergencies. Experiment 1 compared the effectiveness of three training procedures, self-instruction training/ self-reward, self-instructional training/ external-reward, and behavioral training, in the acquisition and maintenance of emergency telephone-dialing skills. While all three training procedures were effective in enhancing performance, the self-instructional/self-reward group appeared to perform somewhat better during the follow-up phases. Experiment 2 compared the effectiveness of the above-mentioned training procedures on teaching subjects how to respond to problem situations likely to be encountered when making a telephone call. The problem situations trained were no dial tone and party line. Although all training groups performed similarly, initially following training, the self-instructional/self-reward group again performed somewhat better over time. In Experiment 3, a discrimination-training procedure was initiated to teach children when to make an emergency telephone call. Subjects were taught to respond differentially to fire-emergency, nonemergency, and neutral situations. In a multiple-baseline design this training procedure was shown to be effective in teaching discriminations and in promoting response generalization to untrained scenes. Implications of these findings are discussed in light of the future research efforts in the area.
Behavior modification, 1988 · doi:10.1177/01454455880123008