Teaching Children to Make Emergency Telephone Calls

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to develop a behavioral procedure to teach preschool children emergency dial ing and to examine its effectiveness. The behavioral procedure was administered by the classroom teacher to examine the effectiveness of teaching 4- and 5- year-old students to dial emergency telephone calls cor rectly when directed to do so by a parent. Training was conducted in a regular classroom setting. Three con ditions were compared to examine the effectiveness of the behavioral treatment strategy: (a) a behavioral procedure, (b) a teacher-devised method, and (c) a con trol group. In groups one and two, each subject was taught specific skills considered necessary in making emergency telephone calls. A component analysis for making emergency calls was carried out, and its content validity determined.