Abstract
ABSTRACTObjective: Pedestrian injuries are a leading cause of child death and may be reduced by training children to cross streets more safely. Such training is most effective when children receive repeated practice at the complex cognitive–perceptual task of judging moving traffic and selecting safe crossing gaps, but there is limited data on how much practice is required for children to reach adult levels of functioning. Using existing data, we examined how children's pedestrian skills changed over the course of 6 pedestrian safety training sessions, each composed of 45 crossings within a virtual pedestrian environment.Methods: As part of a randomized controlled trial on pedestrian safety training, 59 children ages 7–8 crossed the street within a semi-immersive virtual pedestrian environment 270 times over a 3-week period (6 sessions of 45 crossings each). Feedback was provided after each crossing, and traffic speed and density were advanced as children's skill improved. Postintervention pedestrian behavior was assessed a week later in the virtual environment and compared to adult behavior with identical traffic patterns.Results: Over the course of training, children entered traffic gaps more quickly and chose tighter gaps to cross within; their crossing efficiency appeared to increase. By the end of training, some aspects of children's pedestrian behavior was comparable to adult behavior but other aspects were not, indicating that the training was worthwhile but insufficient for most children to achieve adult levels of functioning.Conclusions: Repeated practice in a simulated pedestrian environment helps children learn aspects of safe and efficient pedestrian behavior. Six twice-weekly training sessions of 45 crossings each were insufficient for children to reach adult pedestrian functioning, however, and future research should continue to study the trajectory and quantity of child pedestrian safety training needed for children to become competent pedestrians.
Highlights
Six twice-weekly training sessions of 45 crossings each were insufficient for children to reach adult pedestrian functioning, and future research should continue to study the trajectory and quantity of child pedestrian safety training needed for children to become competent pedestrians
Pedestrian injuries are among the leading causes of child death in the United States (US; NCIPC 2015) and worldwide (WHO 2013), leading to over 400 pediatric deaths and over 45,000 emergency-department treated injuries annually in the US (NCIPC 2015)
As part of a randomized controlled trial on pedestrian safety training (Schwebel, McClure et al 2014), 240 children ages 7-8 were recruited from the Birmingham, AL community and randomly assigned to receive pedestrian safety training in a virtual reality environment or a different experimental group
Summary
As part of a randomized controlled trial on pedestrian safety training, 59 children ages 7-8 crossed the street within a semi-immersive virtual pedestrian environment 270 times over a 3-week period (6 sessions of 45 crossings each). As part of a randomized controlled trial on pedestrian safety training (Schwebel, McClure et al 2014), 240 children ages 7-8 were recruited from the Birmingham, AL community and randomly assigned to receive pedestrian safety training in a virtual reality environment (data used in this study, n=59) or a different experimental group (data not shown). The sample was diverse, with 59% of parents identifying their children as White, 39% as African American, and 2% as other ethnicities or as biracial or multiracial The latter categories were merged with the African American children to create a ‘non-White’ race/ ethnicity group for primary analyses. The study protocol was approved by the Institutional Review Board at University of Alabama at Birmingham
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