Training prosocial behaviors to young children: an analysis of reciprocity with untrained peers.
Teach preschoolers to invite, add a group sticker rule if peers stay quiet, and mutual play doubles.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team worked with three preschoolers who rarely invited peers to play. Adults taught each child one new play invitation at a time using modeling, role-play, and praise.
When two kids started getting invites back, the third did not. Teachers then added a group prize: the whole table earned stickers only if everyone got invited. This small tweak finished the job.
What they found
Play invitations shot up right after training. Two children immediately received more invites from classmates. The third caught up only after the group contingency kicked in.
Gains stuck around for several weeks, even after stickers stopped.
How this fits with other research
Neuringer et al. (1968) first showed that giving kids toys for talking boosts speech. Kohler et al. (1985) uses the same reward idea, but for social play instead of words.
Rider et al. (1984) also used multiple-baseline BST with adults in a hospital. Both studies got positive results, proving the package works across ages and settings.
Matson et al. (2011) flips the agent: peers, not teachers, delivered the intervention for reading. This extends W et al.'s peer focus by showing classmates can run the show, not just react to it.
Why it matters
You can teach preschoolers a single social skill in minutes and see peer pay-back the same day. If reciprocity stalls, tie a fun group reward to everyone being included. No extra staff, no fancy toys—just brief rehearsal and shared stickers.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
We examined the effects of a social skills training package on the play behaviors of three young girls. Two children were taught to invite their peers to play and to use social amenities during their conversations with other children. A combined reversal and multiple baseline across responses design demonstrated that both children directed more social behaviors to their classroom peers after training and that these two children's play invitations were maintained in the later absence of experimental contingencies. In addition, both target children received a greater number of play invitations from their peers during the free play periods. In contrast, a third child's play invitations were not reciprocated by peers; her invitations subsequently decreased in rate after training was discontinued. An interdependent group contingency produced a reciprocal exchange of invitations between this child and her classroom peers. A reversal design demonstrated partial maintenance of subject-peer exchanges after the group intervention was discontinued. The results obtained with the three target children suggest that peer reciprocity may facilitate the maintenance of children's play invitations over time.
Journal of applied behavior analysis, 1985 · doi:10.1901/jaba.1985.18-187