Reducing child uncooperative behavior during dental treatment through modeling and reinforcement.

The team worked with eight disruptive children in a dental clinic. They showed each child a short video of a same-age peer sitting calmly in the dentist chair. After the clip, the child earned small toys for staying in the seat and following directions.

The researchers used a multiple-baseline design. They staggered the start of the video-plus-rewards package across kids to show the change came from the treatment, not luck.

Every child’s uncooperative behavior dropped to clinic-acceptable levels once the package began. Cooperation stayed high as long as the rewards continued.

Petursdottir et al. (2019) built on this idea and made it better. They added a quick functional assessment and then slowly faded the tokens. Their students’ disruption fell even more and academic work rose.

Bickel et al. (1984) showed peers can run the whole system. In their kindergarten, children handed out tokens to each other during transitions with almost no adult help. Stokes et al. (1980) still needed staff to press play and hand over the toys.

Hall et al. (1971) did the earlier groundwork. Teachers simply ignored talking-out and praised raised hands. The 1980 dental study copied that reinforcement logic and added the peer video to make the desired behavior crystal clear.

If you work with kids who melt down in medical or dental clinics, copy this package. Queue a two-minute peer video on your tablet and bring a bag of dollar-store trinkets. Start the show, then deliver a toy for every calm minute. You should see cooperation climb within the first visit.