Social control of form diversity and the emergence of new forms in children's blockbuilding.
Praise the very first new move to make preschoolers create more varied play shapes.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team watched preschoolers build with blocks.
They praised the child the moment a brand-new shape appeared.
When the same shape showed up later, they stayed quiet.
The kids worked alone in a quiet room.
An ABAB design turned the praise on and off to be sure the rule worked.
What they found
Praise for first-time shapes made kids build more different forms.
New, never-seen shapes popped up faster.
When the praise stopped, the kids went back to repeating old towers.
Bring the praise back and the flood of new forms returned.
How this fits with other research
Pliskoff et al. (1978) did the same trick with tools instead of blocks.
They also saw a jump in new, useful tool moves.
The two studies together show the rule works across toys.
Cividini-Motta et al. (2024) later swept dozens of papers into one review.
They say the key is simple: save the best praise for the first correct or new move.
The 1973 block study is one of the earliest proofs listed in that review.
Why it matters
You can grow creative play in any preschool session.
Watch for the first time a child tries a new puzzle piece, drawing stroke, or Lego shape.
Drop immediate social praise right then.
Stay quiet when the child repeats it.
This tiny shift keeps therapy fun and sparks a wider skill set without extra toys or time.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
The blockbuilding behavior of three preschool girls was analyzed in terms of the forms manifest in any completed block construction, and found to contain few different forms in baseline sessions. Social reinforcement, given contingent on the production of any form not previously constructed within the current session (i.e., every first appearance of any form within a session was reinforced but no subsequent appearances of that form within that session were), increased the number of different forms built per sessions. Social reinforcement, given for all second and later appearances within the session, decreased the number of different forms built per session. Furthermore, it was found that new forms (forms never seen before in the child's total prior sequence of blockbuilding sessions) emerged at higher rates during periods of reinforcement of different forms (first appearances) than during periods of baseline or reinforcement of same forms (second and later appearances).
Journal of applied behavior analysis, 1973 · doi:10.1901/jaba.1973.6-209