Generalization and maintenance of preschool children's social skills: a critical review and analysis.

Chandler et al. (1992) read every preschool social-skills study they could find before 1990.

They counted how many papers checked if the new skills lasted or moved to new places.

The team then listed the best ways to make play skills stick.

Most studies only watched kids in the training room.

Few looked at free-play, new teachers, or next week.

The ones that did used three tricks: train with many examples, add real-world cues, and let kids track their own progress.

Brown et al. (1994) built on this list and sorted the tricks into Stokes & Osnes bins like "use natural rewards."

McMillan et al. (1997) gave deaf preschoolers social BST without these tricks and saw no carry-over; once they added multiple peers and places, the skills spread.

Jones et al. (1992) tested one of the tricks—self-evaluation—in the same year and showed it helped typical kids play more with autistic classmates.

Together the four papers say the same thing: plan for generalization from day one, don’t hope it happens.

If you run social groups in preschool, stop thinking generalization is a bonus. Write it into the plan. Pick two peers, two toys, and two rooms before you start. Add a tiny self-score card the child can color after each turn. These steps take ten extra minutes and save you from re-teaching the same skill next month.