Increasing preschoolers' use of car safety devices : an effective program for day care staff.

This study reports the evaluation of an easily implemented and inexpensive procedure for increasing preschool children's use of car safety devices. Teachers inside a day-care center gave rewards (colorful stickers) to buckled-up children based on parents' reports of safety device usage. Safety compliance rates increased from a Baseline average of 37.7% to 86.2% in the reward period (based on external, unobtrusive observations). Some drop-off in usage to an average of 67.8% occurred when the rewards ceased during the return-to-baseline phase. Few parents untruthfully reported compliance.