No doubt everyone has bared witness to those frightful temper tantrums that pre-schoolers throw when they don't get their own way. Now, however, a study due to appear in the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis says that a simple 3-step "guided compliance" routine is the best method to curb disobedient behavior. Psychology professor David Wilder analyzed literally hundreds of commands directed at preschool-age children to determine the effectiveness of the rediscovered 3-step technique. The six-month study involved several 45-minute sessions a week with preschool-age children, where the children were faced with a prompting system comprised of three stages.
First, a simple instruction was given to a child, such as "Give me the snack item," "Put the toy away," or "Come here." The child was given praise whenever they complied with the instructor's first request. If the child did not respond, the instructor stated the child's name in order to make eye contact, which may occasionally involve touching the child's chin. The instructor then repeated the initial request while also modeling the activity for the child. If the child has still not complied after 10 seconds, the instructor again repeated the request while guiding the child through the activity. "It may sound simple, but if parents don't do it consistently, the results aren't there," says Wilder.
Wilder says that if parents and teachers consistently use the 3-step regimen, and remain emotionally detached while issuing steps 2 and 3, then the results can be truly amazing. After controlled tests, Wilder found that instructors following the prescribed model had a 91 percent compliance rate, while other less vigilant instructors could have as low as zero percent.
"These results have implications for the use of three-step prompting as a method to increase compliance among children," Wilder says. "Inconsistent implementation of the procedure, which may be likely to occur when parents or teachers become busy or when they must supervise many children, may result in less than ideal effects. On the other hand, consistent implementation of the procedure may produce substantial increases in compliance."
Source: Florida Institute of Technology
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