TEACHING PRESCHOOLERS TO USE APPROPRIATE DINNERTIME CONVERSATION - ANALYSIS OF GENERALIZATION FROM SCHOOL TO HOME

The mealtime conversations of middle-class families appear to be predominantly adult and disciplinary. A preschool program was implemented to teach a group of four preschool children to initiate interesting conversational comments to their family members. Comments on three different topics were taught at the preschool through role-playing and reinforcement of the child's appropriate comments that corresponded to his previous night's dinnertime conversation at home. Comments in each topic area occurred only after training was applied to that particular topic. The preschool training and reinforcers were later deleted with appropriate comments being maintained by feedback from parents and by mutually interesting mealtime conversation. These findings suggest that school-based correspondence training is an effective procedure which preschools may use to assist children in initiating mutually interesting family conversation. The procedure represents additional technology for generalizing new skills from school to home. © 1979 Association for Advancement of Behavior Therapy.