Promoting generalized social interactions using puppets and script training in an integrated preschool. A single-case study using multiple baseline design.
Puppet scripts with brief practice teach preschoolers to greet, answer, and start talks, and the skills move to free-play.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team worked in an integrated preschool. They picked three social skills: greeting, answering peers, and starting a chat.
Kids practiced short scripts with hand puppets. The teacher showed the line, the child said it with the puppet, and got quick praise or a fix.
They tracked each skill across several weeks using a multiple-baseline design.
What they found
All three skills rose only after puppet training began.
The children used the same lines later during free-play without puppets. Skills stayed up for the whole study.
How this fits with other research
Covey et al. (2021) push the idea further. They trained classmates, not puppets, to cue play in older students with moderate to severe disabilities. Both studies show peers can spark social behavior, but Covey moves the method to elementary age and lets typical peers run the show.
Christopher et al. (1991) and Howard et al. (1988) are earlier stepping-stones. The 1988 paper first used behavioral scripts to teach adults with severe ID to sign during play. The 1991 study tried the same package in a group home. The 1999 puppet study keeps the script idea but swaps signing for talking and moves the setting to preschool.
Reichow et al. (2009) looks like a clash at first. They used Social Stories to boost greetings in one elementary student and saw quick gains. Puppet scripts also teach greetings, yet they add practice and feedback. The tools differ, but both aim at the same social skill, so the papers complement, not fight, each other.
Why it matters
If you run an inclusive preschool, try short puppet scripts. You only need a sock puppet, a two-line script, and thirty seconds of practice. Kids copy the lines first with the puppet, then with real friends. The 1999 data say you can see carry-over to recess the same week.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Puppet script training was used to teach the social skills of greeting, responding to conversations, and initiating conversations to a preschool child with visual impairments. Susie and four peers without disabilities were taught social skills utilizing puppets enacting sociodramatic scripts within group training sessions. Training sessions were immediately followed by free-play activities among peers without disabilities to assess skill generalization. A single-case study using a multiple-baseline design demonstrated that the intervention increased performance of social skills during recess with peers. Results demonstrated that Susie learned the target behaviors and generalized their use to free-play activities with her peers.
Behavior modification, 1999 · doi:10.1177/0145445599233005