Teaching Safety Skills to Children: A Discussion of Critical Features and Practice Recommendations
Real-place tests plus BST and generalization planning make safety lessons stick.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Baruni et al. (2022) read every safety-skills study they could find. They pulled out the parts that worked best.
They turned those parts into six clear steps any teacher or BCBA can follow.
What they found
The six steps are: use real-life tests, start with behavioral skills training, add generalization plans, pick key safety responses, watch the child with an adult, and keep data.
The authors say table-top drills alone are not enough. Kids need to practice in the real place where danger can happen.
How this fits with other research
Older papers already showed BST works. Marcucella et al. (1978) got kids to 90 % safe street crossing with a short BST package. Mountjoy et al. (1984) taught blind teens fire-safety; most carried the skills into night drills.
Single-case studies keep backing the same plan. Garcia et al. (2016) used model-rehearse-praise for autistic preschoolers and saw skill keep after five weeks. Tucker et al. (2021) did the same for pool safety and the gains lasted one month.
MByiers et al. (2025) even added a text card to help autistic kids tell bullies to stop. Two kids needed extra help, but all five learned the self-protection chain.
The 2022 paper ties these loose studies together. It says: keep the real-life test, keep BST, and always plan for generalization.
Why it matters
If you run safety lessons, stop ending at the table. Take the child to the actual street, pool, or playground and run the drill there. Add a simple text cue if the learner needs help telling safe from unsafe. Record yes/no for each step and keep practicing until the child passes the real test three times. This one change can turn a good lesson into a life-saving skill.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Children may encounter safety threats from the physical environment (e.g., firearms or poisonous substances) or from the behaviors of others (e.g., abduction or sexual abuse lures). Such encounters may result in injury or death if children do not learn skills to respond safely. Research over the last 40 years has investigated approaches to assessing and training safety skills. This article discusses critical features that have emerged in the research related to best practice for assessing and training safety skills. We emphasize the importance of in situ assessments, effective training approaches, the need for data-based decision making, strategies for enhancing generalization and maintenance, the accessibility of training programs, and approaches to training individuals with disabilities. Following a discussion of each critical feature presented in this article, we provide recommendations for practicing behavior analysts.
Behavior Analysis in Practice, 2022 · doi:10.1007/s40617-021-00667-4