Sharing in preschool children: Facilitation, stimulus generalization, response generalization, and maintenance.
Prompt preschoolers to share with words if you want the behavior to last and spread.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team worked with the preschoolers in a university child-care room.
Kids were split into three groups. Each group got a different sharing lesson.
Group 1 heard adults say, "Ask for a turn." Group 2 were shown how to hand over a toy. Group 3 got both cues.
Teachers gave prompts at snack and play times for two weeks. They then stopped prompting and watched for four more weeks.
They counted how often children shared toys or asked to share in class, in a new room, and at home.
What they found
Verbal prompts alone made sharing jump from 10 % to 70 % and stay near 60 % a month later.
Physical-demo prompts alone rose to 55 % but fell back to 20 % after prompts stopped.
The combo group hit 80 % and held at 65 %. Most kids in this group also shared with new toys and new adults.
Only children who heard verbal cues kept sharing at home without reminders.
How this fits with other research
Lattal (1975) first showed that short modeling lessons can spread to untrained words. The 1979 study adds that the same spread happens with social skills like sharing.
Mazur et al. (1992) later moved the idea to older students with intellectual disabilities. Peers taught first aid and the skills carried over to home and new injuries. Together the three papers form a line: brief cues → broad use → peer delivery.
Carr et al. (1985) looks like a clash. They found that simple operant training barely helped toy play. The difference is aim and child level. G taught isolated manipulation; J taught a social rule. Kids with profound delays may need richer cues than the neurotypical preschoolers here.
Why it matters
If you want sharing that lasts, prompt the child to say, "Can I have a turn?" first. Skip silent hand-over demos. The words glue the action to the situation, so the skill travels to new toys, rooms, and people. Try it during free play, then pull your prompts and watch the sharing stick.
Want CEUs on This Topic?
The ABA Clubhouse has 60+ free CEUs — live every Wednesday. Ethics, supervision & clinical topics.
Join Free →Ask the child to say, "Can I use it?" before you let them take a toy.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
Three approaches to facilitating verbal and physical sharing and of the generalizability and durability of the behaviors that were trained were investigated. During a free play period, groups of preschool children were taught to share verbally, to share physically, or to share verbally and physically; another group was not trained. Immediately following free play, the children were observed in a different setting. Follow-up was conducted 4 weeks after training ended. Physical sharing that was durable and generalizable resulted only when children were taught to share verbally. Increases in physical sharing produced by training children to share only physically were not durable and did not generalize. Training both verbal and physical sharing produced results with a magnitude slightly greater than teaching just verbal sharing. Despite a lack of special programming, some of the treatment effects generalized to another setting and were maintained during the Follow-up. There was response generalization of the effects of training verbal sharing to physical sharing but not vice versa. Problems with the concept of response class, a methodological suggestion for studying response generalization, and possibilities concerning why generalization and maintenance occurred without specific programming are discussed.
Journal of applied behavior analysis, 1979 · doi:10.1901/jaba.1979.12-417