Can a Doll Teach Firearm Safety?
By: Elizabeth Zeppernick, M.Ed., BCBA, LBA
The fear of children playing with guns and unintentionally causing injury to themselves or others is a real and grave concern. Studies have found that, even immediately after being told never to touch a gun, kids do pick up and play with guns and cannot consistently discriminate between a real or fake gun (Hardy et al., 1996).
When teaching firearm safety there are two approaches one can take- informational or active learning. Informational strategies often take the form of a presenter or video explaining why guns are not safe and what the child can do if they find a gun. An example of this might be a police officer visiting a local school to speak about the dangers of guns. Informational strategies like this have proven ineffective (Hardy 2002; Hardy et al., 1996; Gatheridge et al., 2004; Himle, Miltenberger, Gatheridge, et al., 2004; Kelso et al., 2007).
In contrast to informational strategies, active learning approaches include Behavioral Skills Training (BST) and In Situ Training (IST). Behavioral Skills Training is an effective model which involves instruction, modeling, rehearsing, and providing feedback. It is often used in the field of Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) when teaching new skills to children and adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities. In two studies demonstrating looking at the effectiveness of BST, researchers found that roughly half of the youth participants were successfully able to demonstrate safe firearm skills. Those participants were also able to maintain the skills over time and generalize them across different settings (Himle, Miltenberger, Flessner, et al 2004 and Miltenberger et al. 2004). In Situ Training (IST) is when the trainer catches the child not using the safety skill and can then initiate practice on the spot until the child can carry it out independently. It can be used when BST is not effective.
Another training technique is Small-Scale Simulation Training in which small model size figures and dolls can be used to simulate an actual environment. This has proven effective in teaching adolescents with intellectual disabilities to cross the street safely (Page et al., 1976), to teach bus-riding skills (Neef et al., 1978), and to teach firearm safety skills to children who were typically developing (Maxfield et al., 2019).
In a recent study, Orner et al. (2021) applied this small-scale simulation training of gun safety to children with an Autism Spectrum Disorder diagnosis. Their three participants were between 5-6 years old and simulation training occurred in their homes. Training took place in the small-scale simulation model which included replica rooms, furniture, and a toy handgun. The toy firearm was placed within the model home and the trainer would provide instruction using phrases like, “Let's pretend you are this doll and show me what you would do using your doll” (Orner et al. 2021). The child was taught different scenarios where the toy gun was located in different areas within the model home. They practiced that when they located the gun, they needed to make their doll call out to or seek the doll representing the parent. The small-scale training was then evaluated with an assessment in the actual full-scale rooms with a disabled full size gun to determine the effectiveness of the model-scale training. The “in situ” or real-life trial was to assess that the child did not touch the firearm but instead left the area and reported it to an available adult. When assessment results indicated that mastery had not been met, the child received ‘booster’ training sessions via small-scale simulation, and the assessment was repeated until mastery.
The study found that small-scale simulation training alone was effective for one of the three participants. A second participant required both small-scale simulation and the addition of a reinforcement procedure to promote the safety skill in the natural environment. The third participant was not successful with small-scale simulation alone and required several “in situ” or natural environment training sessions to master the skill.
The study’s social validity (level of satisfaction) measurements indicated that the parents felt their children were safer after the training, agreed that their children enjoyed the training, and would recommend the training to others.
In addition to teaching other safety skills, participation in small-scale simulation training has the potential to promote firearm safety and reduce the significant risk of teaching a child in their natural environment. As it relates to firearm safety, this is an even more important factor making this type of training attractive. Similar to training children with intellectual and developmental disabilities to safely cross the street, training firearm safety skills must be both safe and effective. Additional research with a larger pool of participants should be conducted to further assess the benefits of small-scale simulation, particularly when teaching safety skills to children with ASD.
Sources:
Gatheridge, B. J., Miltenberger, R. G., Huneke, D. F., Satterlund, M. J., Mattern, A. R., Johnson, B. M., & Flessner, C. A. (2004). Comparison of two programs to teach firearm injury prevention skills to 6- and 7- year-old children. Pediatrics, 114, 294-299. https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2003-0635-L
Hardy, M.S., Armstrong, F.D., Martin, B.L.& Strawn, K.N. (1996). A firearm safety program for children. Journal of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics, 17(4), 216-221
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Himle, M.B., Miltenberger, R.G., Flessner, C., & Gatheridge, B. (2004). Teaching safety skills to children to prevent gun play. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 37(1), 1-9. https://doi.org/10.1901/jaba.2004.37-1
Himle, M. B., Miltenberger, R. G., Gatheridge, B., & Flessner, C. (2004). An evaluation of two procedures for training skills to prevent gun play in children. Pediatrics, 113, 70-77. https://doi.org/10.1542.peds.113.1.70
Kelso, P., Miltenberger, R., Waters, M., Egemo-Helm, K., & Bagne, A. (2007). Teaching skills to second and third grade children to prevent gun play: A comparison of procedures. Education and Treatment of Children, 30, 29-48. https://doi.org/10.1353.etc.2007.0016
Maxfield, T.C., Miltenberger, R.G., & Novotny, M.A. (2019) Evaluating small-scale simulation for training firearm safety skills. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 37(3), 513-516. https://doi.org/10.1901/jaba.2005.130-04
Miltenberger, R. G., Flessner, C., Gatheridge, B., Johnson, B., Satterlund, M., & Egemo, K. (2004). Evaluation of behavioral skills training procedures to prevent gun play in children. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 37, 513-516. https://dio.org/10.1901/jaba.2005.130-4
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Orner, M.E., Miltenberger, R.G., & Maxfield, T. Evaluating small‐scale simulation training of firearm safety to children with autism spectrum disorder. Behavioral Interventions. 2021;1-11. https://doi.org/10.1002/bin.1790
Page, T. J., Iwata, B. A., & Neef, N. A. (1976). Teaching pedestrian skills to retarded persons: Generalization from the classroom to the natural environment. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 9, 433-444. https://doi.org/10.1901/jaba.1976.9-433
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