Teaching Stranger Danger
By: Elizabeth Zeppernick, M.Ed., BCBA, LBA
While uncommon, child abduction is a valid fear for parents and caregivers. In order to prevent or reduce the occurrence of child abduction, children should be trained as to how to respond when faced with an abduction attempt. The science of Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) and specifically, the methodology of Behavior Skills Training (BST) can be used to teach the necessary responses for abduction prevention.
In the study titled, “Teaching Abduction Prevention Skills to Children Using a One-on-One Training Setting,” researchers Berube et al. (2021) evaluated the effects of BST complimented with In Situ Training (IST) to teach abduction prevention skills to six-year-old triplets who were developmentally neurotypical. BST is an intervention that includes providing instruction, modeling, rehearsing, and providing feedback in order to teach a new skill. IST is another training modality that includes using the natural environment to stage a situation. The two strategies can be used in conjunction as they were in this study.
In this study, researchers Berube et al. (2021) used the following four most common types of abduction lures as outlined by Johnson et al. (2006):
Simple Lure- The abductor asks the child to, “Come with me.”
Authority Lure- The abductor suggests they know the child’s caregivers, e.g., “Your dad asked me to pick you up.”
Incentive Lure- The abductor uses something the child likes, e.g., “I have candy in my car. Want to come get some?”
Assistance Lure- The abductor asks for the child’s help, e.g., “Can you help me find my lost cat?”
Aside from being told by their parents not to talk to strangers, the three participants in this study had no formalized training in skills related to abduction prevention. A pre-assessment was conducted in a playground using one or several of the four lures described above to assess the participants' existing skills related to abduction. This baseline data is the measurement of the behavior before the intervention takes place. Prior to intervention, the participants all either agreed to go with the abductor or didn’t agree to go but failed to say “no,” leave the area or report to an adult.
The subsequent Behavior Skills Training took place in an office building. The participants were taught what a stranger was and taught the different types of lures described above. The target responses that were taught were to say, “no,” leave the area and tell an adult what had happened. The researchers aimed to have the initial training occur with only one adult to simulate the more likely training scenario when only one therapist or caregiver is available. During training, the experimenter wore a hat when they were modeling the abductor’s actions and took the hat off when modeling the behavior of the child. Training took place until the participant could emit all of the appropriate responses (“no,” leave the area and tell an adult) for all four types of lures. The training was repeated until this mastery criterion was met. The total duration of training was less than 30 minutes for all three participants.
After this stage of training, the In-Situ Training (IST) occurred in the participant’s front yard. When approached by a novel person playing the role of the abductor, if the participant performed the responses correctly, the experimenter appeared and provided praise or, conversely, provided corrective feedback for responses that were incorrect. These training sessions were repeated until the target behavior was present for all four types of abduction lures.
During the generalization session which took place in a local park one month after the last training session, all three participants showed mastery of the skills originally taught. After the study was concluded, the participants' parents indicated in a survey that they strongly agreed that the abduction prevention skills were relevant, acceptable, and helpful.
Sources:
Berube, T., MacDonald, J., and Parry-Cruwys, D. (2021), Teaching abduction prevention skills to children using a one-on-one training setting. Behavioral Interventions. https://doi.org/10.1002/bin.1806
Johnson, B. M., Miltenberger, R. G., Knudson, P., Egemo-Helm, K., Kelso, P., Jostad, C., & Langley, L. (2006). A preliminary evaluation of two behavioral skills training procedures for teaching abduction-prevention skills to school children. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 39, 25-34. https://doi.org/10.1901/jaba.2006.167-04
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