Using reinforcement and cueing to increase healthy snack food choices in preschoolers.

The team worked with preschoolers who had no diagnoses. They wanted more kids to pick fruit or milk at snack time.

Teachers first gave stickers and praise when a child chose a healthy item. Later they added green smiley-face tags on the foods and sent the tags home with parents.

The study checked if choices rose at school and if they also rose at home.

Snack choices improved quickly at school when teachers used praise and stickers.

Home choices did not budge until parents also used the green smiley tags and praise.

Once parents joined in, healthy picks stayed high in both places.

Davis et al. (1974) got similar gains twelve years earlier. They used candy plus praise so low-income Head Start kids ate full meals. The 1986 study adds the cue piece and tests carry-over to home.

Seiverling et al. (2012) and Amore et al. (2011) took the parent part further. They taught parents full behavioral skills training to treat feeding disorders in autism. The snack-cue idea grew into a clinical tool.

Hausman et al. (2017) looks different at first glance. They taught portion size with stimulus equivalence, not snack choice. Yet both use candy reinforcers in preschool classrooms, showing the method keeps working across tiny health skills.

You can boost healthy choices tomorrow by putting a green smiley on fruit cups and praising each pick. If you want the habit at home, hand the tags to parents and show them how to praise. The combo costs pennies and takes minutes.