Citation

Albert RR, Dolgin KG. Accid. Anal. Prev. 2010; 42(2): 500-508.

Affiliation

211 Uris Hall, Department of Psychology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14858, USA; Ohio Wesleyan University, 61 S. Sandusky Street, Delaware, OH 43015, USA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2010, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.aap.2009.09.014

PMID

20159073

Abstract

Can short-term training improve preschoolers' knowledge of road-crossing concepts as well as behavior in a real traffic situation? Forty children, aged four to five years, were assigned to one of four conditions (game, story, song, and control). Each condition participated in four 15-min classroom-based lessons over four weeks. Two assessments measuring knowledge of street-crossing concepts and one assessment measuring behavior on a real street were used to evaluate performance at baseline and one week and six months post-training. Children in all three experimental conditions showed a significant improvement over the control on the two conceptual assessments. Only children in the game condition significantly improved their behavior on the street-crossing assessment. Furthermore, children in all three experimental conditions retained the same levels of improvement at the six-month follow-up. These results demonstrate that one hour of training can create lasting improvements on preschool children's conceptual knowledge of traffic safety and road-crossing behavior on a real street.

Language: en