YOUNG CHILDRENS LEARNING ON ROAD-CROSSING SIMULATIONS

Previous studies have characterised young children as unskilled road-users. Provision of training and practice in basic road-crossing skills may reduce children's fisk on the roads, as increasing automatisation of these skills will free attentional resources for more demanding aspects of road-user behaviour. Previous work by Lee and colleagues suggests that training on a road-crossing simulation called the Pretend Road improves various aspects of young children's road-crossing skill. The present investigation extends these findings by reporting on the generalisability and durability of these improvements. Five-year-old children were trained on one of two road-crossing simulations and assessed on three occasions after training. The results indicate that substantial transfer occurs between training tasks, but long-term retention appears to be weak.