EVALUATION OF A FIRE-SAFETY TRAINING-PROGRAM FOR PRESCHOOL-CHILDREN

Children under the age of 5 are 2.5 times more likely to die from fire than any other childhood age group. The work described here is an emp irical evaluation of a fire-safety program for preschool children, inv olving 10 child-care facilities and 443 children ages 3, 4 and 5 years . Children in six centers received an 18-week fire-safety training pro gram called Kid Safe. Children in four other centers were assigned to the delayed-treatment condition and constituted the comparison group. All children were pretested using a comprehensive measure of fire-safe ty knowledge before the start of the study. The same test was readmini stered to all children following presentation of the program to the tr eatment group. At each of the three ages, children in the treatment gr oup showed significantly greater knowledge gains from pretest to postt est than did children in the comparison group. Interestingly, 3-year-o lds showed the greatest change of any age group. These findings provid e support for the value of training preschool children in fire safety as an important strategy for injury prevention in this age group. (C) 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.