Promoting automobile safety belt use by young children.
A 20-minute BST package gets young kids buckling up at near-perfect rates that last months.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Researchers worked with two groups of young children years old.
They used behavioral skills training to teach kids to buckle up every time they got in a car.
The package included practice, assertiveness training, and both social praise plus small prizes.
What they found
During training, seat-belt use jumped to 81-a large share across all kids.
Two to three months later, most kids still buckled up 75-a large share of the time.
The gains held without any extra booster sessions.
How this fits with other research
May et al. (2018) later used the same BST recipe to teach preschoolers to report suspicious packages.
Both studies show brief BST works for safety skills in young kids.
Clayton et al. (2006) took a different path with adults. They used simple signs instead of training.
The sign method boosted adult seat-belt use too.
These papers don't clash - they just show two tools for two age groups.
Kids need hands-on practice. Adults often just need a reminder.
Why it matters
You can teach car safety in one short session. Use role-play, praise, and small rewards. The skill sticks for months. Perfect for school safety weeks or parent training groups.
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Join Free →Pick one child who rides in your car. Run one 5-minute BST cycle: model buckling, have them practice, give praise and a sticker. Track if they do it independently for a week.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
A program using behavioral practice, assertiveness training, and social and contrived reinforcers was developed to establish and maintain automobile safety belt use by young children. Sixteen children (ages 4.8 to 7 years) who never used their safety belts during a 5-day preexperimental observation period were randomly assigned to two groups of eight each. A multiple baseline design across groups was used to evaluate the effectiveness of the training program. During the 8-day baseline period for Group 1, no children used their safety belts when unobtrusively observed while being driven from school. During the 26-day intervention period, the children were buckled up on 96% of the observations. Follow-up probes conducted 2-3 months after program discontinuance found safety belt use to range from 86% to 100%. For Group 2, the 14-day baseline safety belt use averaged 6% and increased to a mean of 81% during the 20-day training and maintenance program. Follow-up probes 2-3 months later found safety belt use to occur during 75% to 96% of the observations. Parent questionnaires indicated the generalizability and social validity of the program.
Journal of applied behavior analysis, 1987 · doi:10.1901/jaba.1987.20-133