Escape and avoidance response of pre-school children to two schedules of reinforcement withdrawal.

The researcher worked with four preschool kids in a small room. A toy train sat on the table. When the child pressed a lever, the train rolled for 10 seconds and a red light came on. After a few minutes the light turned off and the train stopped. If the child pressed again during the next 30 seconds, nothing happened. This brief "no train" period was the mild punishment.

The kids quickly learned to press the lever as soon as the light dimmed. That single press restarted the train and avoided the quiet period. Each child served as their own control in a simple A-B-A design.

All four children learned the avoidance response in one session. They pressed the lever within 2 seconds of the light dimming a large share of the time. The behavior stayed strong even when the quiet period was shortened or removed.

When the train never stopped again, the kids still pressed quickly for 30 more trials. The avoidance had become a habit.

Zeiler (1968) later showed rats can do the same thing. The rats held a bar during a tone to avoid shock, then released it after the tone ended. Same two-response pattern, different species.

Edwards et al. (1970) added warning signals to pigeon avoidance. Birds pressed one key when a red light came on and a different key when it stayed off. The 1960 kids did both jobs with one lever, proving preschoolers can handle the same signal-discrimination task.

Sullivan et al. (2020) looks like a clash. They found that taking reinforcement away makes problem behavior come back. BAER (1960) shows taking reinforcement away can teach new, useful behavior. The difference is timing. Sullivan removed reinforcement after the child had it, so the old behavior returned. M removed reinforcement before the child lost it, so the child acted early to keep it.

You can build quick, durable safety habits in young kids with tiny losses they care about. A two-second pause of a favorite song, game, or video can teach them to fasten a seat belt, close a gate, or wash hands before the pause hits. Keep the loss brief and the warning clear, then fade the pause once the habit sticks.