Concept Formation of Injury Prevention in Preschool Children: Implementing the Healthy Tomorrow Curriculum

Objective: To explore the process of concept formation of injury and injury prevention in preschool children engaged in an interactive curriculum involving participation of a person with disability (PWD).

Design: Cross-over and repeated measures controlled design.

Participants/methods: 44 children, ages 4-6, formed two intervention (1,2) and one control (3) group. Pre- and post-intervention assessments utilized the newly developed Disability Awareness Rating Scale (DAR), and the Social Skills Subscale from the Bracken Basic Concepts Scale. The 1st group received our Healthy Tomorrow (HT) program structured as 4 lessons on understanding injury and related issues (e.g., disability, assistive technology). The 2nd group received ad hoc instruction from their usual teacher who had been oriented to the goals and methods of HT. The 3rd group received the usual preschool curriculum.

Results: Preschoolers in the 2 intervention groups advanced in their understanding of injury thus demonstrating better organization of injury-oriented perceptual and reasoning processes, conceptually viewed as basic elements of cause-effect relationships in a newly developed Injury Concept Formation Model (ICFM). DAR scores showed improvement in both intervention groups compared to control.

Conclusions: Promoting understanding of injury prevention in preschool children requires engaged learning as specific concept formation does not unfold naturally in the course of the self- and social development. A curriculum based on understanding of injury through modeled experience, including person-to-person contact with a PWD, is more effective in promoting injury prevention initiatives than are programs that rely on a non-interactive teaching strategy.

This project was funded by NIDRR grant #H133B031114