Establishing fire safety skills using behavioral skills training.
Brief BST plus surprise probes teaches teens to walk away from lighters and tell an adult.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Three high-school students practiced what to do when they saw a lighter.
The trainer used BST: explain, model, practice, and feedback.
Later the team staged surprise lighter drops at school to see if the teens still acted safely.
What they found
Every teen passed the surprise test.
Each child left the area and told an adult without reminders.
How this fits with other research
Ivancic et al. (1981) did the same thing 30 years earlier with younger kids.
They used a fake bedroom fire and got the same strong results.
Kumalasari et al. (2018) later showed BST still works for teens with Down syndrome.
The pattern is clear: BST plus real-life probes keeps kids safe across ages and diagnoses.
Why it matters
You can copy this package tomorrow.
Teach the rule, rehearse it, then drop an unplanned lighter in the hallway.
One brief drill can lock in a life-saving chain: don’t touch, move away, get help.
Want CEUs on This Topic?
The ABA Clubhouse has 60+ free CEUs — live every Wednesday. Ethics, supervision & clinical topics.
Join Free →After your next BST lesson, plant an unlit lighter in the classroom trash can and see what happens.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
The use of behavioral skills training (BST) to educate 3 adolescent boys on the risks of lighters and fire setting was evaluated using in situ assessment in a school setting. Two participants had a history of fire setting. After training, all participants adhered to established rules: (a) avoid a deactivated lighter, (b) leave the training area, and (c) report the lighter to an adult. The response sequence was maintained for both participants after training. The use of in situ assessment to evoke and observe infrequent behavior is discussed.
Journal of applied behavior analysis, 2014 · doi:10.1002/jaba.113