Passenger Safety Restraints

Car accidents are the leading cause of death for children in the United States. State and National regulations on car seats have lessened these fatalities over the years, but many still occur due to the improper installation of these devices. Studies have shown that many people either do not know how to properly install the devices or find them too difficult. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of behavioral skill training to teach individuals the proper way to install child passenger safety restraints (CPSR'S) or car seats. Behavioral skills training uses instruction, modeling, rehearsal, praise and corrective feedback to teach an individual to perform a specific target behavior. First, the teacher will …show more content…
They were asked to review the manual for fifteen minutes. A multiple baseline design across participants was used to measure the progress of the training. For each participant, the study was conducted on two separate days. On the first day, the participants completed baseline observations and the second day the participants completed all BST sessions. During the sessions, the technician would give them instructions on how to install the device, then show them how to properly install the device and then all them to install the device. As they installed the device, the technician would give immediate descriptive praise if they performed the behavior correctly. If they did it incorrectly, the technician would tell them what was wrong, and ask the participant to correct the error. If the error was corrected, the participant was asked to proceed with the installation. Once the BST was completed, an extension probe to access whether the participants and carry out the skills demonstrated in the training. The study found that none of the participants could perfectly perform the task, however, the average amount of errors committed were 2. That is about four less than those committed in baseline finding. They also found that most of the participants committed the same two errors which were not securing the tether anchor properly and securing the car seat to the …show more content…
As stated in the earlier paragraph, they could not pinpoint which part of the BST really had an impact on the improvement of the skills learned. Which leads me to my first question; could they break down the steps and test which step is most effective in improving the installation skills? Also, the BST only trained the individuals on how to properly install the device in the rear facing orientation but the probe tested both the rear facing and forward facing orientation. Now the study showed success with the rear facing but not the forward facing. They also conducted no baseline data on whether or not the participants could install the device in this orientation before the training started, but they were accessed on whether or not they could perform this task. This leads me to my second question: if they would have trained participants on how to properly install the CPRS in the forward facing orientation, would this have improved their skills in this area? Also, why was this included in their results if it was not tested at an earlier time and how did the measure whether or not this skill improved. It also reported that one of the participants cut their sessions because of the time. To avoid this problem in a later study, can the sessions be conducted on more than only two days? Lastly, there was only one car seat and one vehicle used. Vehicles vary and so do car seats; so my last question is can this