Descriptive versus general praise with and without edibles for acquisition in young children
Praise alone rarely teaches new skills to preschoolers—drop in an edible at the first sign of no progress.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Kamana et al. (2022) worked with six preschoolers who had no diagnoses.
The team taught the kids simple tasks like naming colors.
They compared four setups: descriptive praise, general praise, praise plus a small candy, and praise plus a different candy.
What they found
Praise alone taught the skill to zero kids.
When candy joined the praise, every child learned the task.
Descriptive and general praise worked the same once the candy appeared.
How this fits with other research
Cariveau et al. (2022) also saw that timing matters.
They waited a few correct responses before giving stronger reinforcers and kids mastered skills faster.
Both studies show that praise often needs a backup.
Dufour et al. (2020) and Au-Yeung et al. (2015) found the same pattern with children with autism.
Edibles beat break time for wearing a monitor or following instructions.
Together the papers say the same thing: have edible reinforcers ready, no matter the child’s label.
Why it matters
If you run preschool sessions, keep a small cup of raisins or cereal nearby.
Start with praise, but the moment learning stalls, add the edible and keep teaching.
Fade the food later once the skill is strong.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
AbstractPrevious research comparing the effects of descriptive and general praise on the acquisition of skills has yielded mixed outcomes. We attempted to replicate extend previous research by (a) isolating the effects of the different types of praise for acquisition of skills in eight preschool children and (b) determining child preference for the different types of praise. However, only two participants consistently acquired target skills (with negligible differences across the different types of praise); six of the eight participants did not consistently acquire target skills with either type of praise. Therefore, we added edibles to increase the efficacy of praise for these six participants. Results showed that all six participants acquired more skills when edibles were added. Furthermore, two of the six participants for whom we added edibles showed acquisition under particular conditions after a history with edibles. Results of the preference evaluation showed idiosyncratic outcomes across the seven participants with whom it was conducted.
Behavioral Interventions, 2022 · doi:10.1002/bin.1849