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What DID Dr. Embry find?
The claim is that because the "Embry study" was about teaching
children to not run into the street by using a set of training strategies, that the study was not about "spanking" so it shouldn't be considered as an argument against "spanking to teach." So what did Dr. Embry actually say originally, and what did he say in his conversation with Barkley in this ng later: : In the Summer 1987 issue of _Children_ magazine, Dr. Dennis Embry : writes: : "Since 1977 I have been heading up the only long-term project : designed to counteract pedestrian accidents to preschool-aged children. : (Surprisingly, getting struck by a car is about the third leading cause : of death to young children in the United States.) : "Actual observation of parents and children shows that spanking, : scolding, reprimanding and nagging INCREASES the rate of street entries : by children. Children use going into the street as a near-perfect way : to gain parents' attention. : "Now there is a promising new educational intervention program, : called Safe Playing. The underlying principles of the program are : simple: : 1. Define safe boundaries in a POSITIVE way. "Safe : players play on the grass or sidewalk." : 2. Give stickers for safe play. That makes it more fun : than playing dangerously. : 3. Praise your child for safe play. : "These three principles have an almost instant effect on : increasing safe play. We have observed children who had been spanked : many times a day for going into the street, yet they continued to do it. : The moment the family began giving stickers and praise for safe play, the : children stopped going into the street. : Dennis D. Embry, Ph.D. : University of Kansas : Lawrence Kansas" Here, in recent months, he personally posted quite the same thing in as many words: "We have observed children who had been spanked many times a day for going into the street, yet they continued to do it. The moment the family began giving stickers and praise for safe play, the children stopped going into the street." And he pointed out the most frequent offenders were children that showed behavioral problems...the very type of child more likely to be spanked in the first place. And the results with these children, after the parent's participated in the study, with training on how to reinforce "Safe Play," the most improvement of the entire set of children, as I recall. Because the study is at present only available in hard copy, I am told, I have once again contacted Triple A, and requested they convert their copy to PDF format so it can be offered in that format for easier and less costly access (It costs a bit over $14 now, I believe, to have it copied and shipped,) and because this is a rare and important study that needs to be seen and read. I'll keep checking to see if they change it's status on their page that listed it, at: http://www.aaafoundation.org/resourc...utton=rsrchcat You might check from time to time as well if you'd like to see this report and what it actually says, and as that related to Dr. Embry's prior comment about the research and spanking, and of course what he said in this newsgroup. Or you could make the purchase yourself. And Doan, as yet, busy as he is with running down the miscreant that tried to pose as him using a cowardly nym, did not ever respond to my question asking for a study that was about the efficacy of using CP, spanking, to teach a child this same thing, reduction of street entries by toddlers. Not even a study on the use of any methods, plus spanking. Though that would be rather counterintuative to consider such a study. But then, 0;] Kane |
Dear Readers,
I am posting this on May 8, 2014. I am Dennis Embry, the author of the study that showed spanking, reprimanding, etc. impulsive or defiant children clearly increased the rate of dangerous behavior. That study was my dissertation, and I defended it in 1981. We did not set out to prove that spanking was evil or effective; like good scientists, we observed phenomena. I am a rigorous scientist who consistently tests hypothesis, and I even assumed that spanking might actually suppress such dangerous behavior—which did not happen. We were able to reduce the dangerous behavior by increasing the density of attention, praise and reinforcement for NOT going into the street, and by having particularly defiant or impulsive children "sit and watch" the fun happening for a 2-minutes with opportunity to be reinforced for playing safely right away. Should anyone actually want PDF copies of these studies, please email me. I am a public figure, and you can easily find my contact info. (I don't post my email here, as God knows what SPAM that will create). I note that we and others have replicated this phenomena in other situations, and have effective solutions. For example, in the classroom, my colleagues at Johns Hopkins have found that reinforcing children for NOT disturbing and disrupting classrooms with simple group based rewards has lifetime impact (20 years later) for reducing crime, drug use, mental illness, sociality, depression, etc. You can see more at http://bit.ly/NREPP. The core understanding of the phenomena we observed can best be understood mathematically by the work of Thomas Dishion on the cycle of coercion or the matching law. Such studies by Dr. Dishion can be found at www.pubmed.gov. Understanding at a deeper level why aggression toward children produces higher levels of aggression can only be understood by the evolutionary fact that since the invention of stone tools that the main predator of humans was other humans and that the principle source of safety of humans was other humans. Sadly, that is story of Cain and Abel in Genesis. As you read the exchange about my study, you may be struck by a supreme irony: the exchange of verbal blows function as reinforcers for attention by partisans on each side of my research. I must say that that was never an intention of the study. The Mistress of Science never cares about the status of scientists or partisans, which should be an object lesson a similar exchanges happen about many other subjects like climate change, solar energy, etc. any more than Science cared about the status of the Vatican versus Galileo. Facts out on their own. Except in some alternate perverse universe, there will never be a experimental trial study that randomly assigns children of different personalities and behavioral traits to be punished physically or not in some graded intensity and frequency to prove the issue, one way or another. At this point of knowledge, that would like conducting a randomized trial of the efficacy of parachutes. As field of prevention science and developmental psychology has come to show, we have a considerable about of data that stretches back over time that physical punishment of children can have very adverse consequences that nobody anticipated or predicted. It my study, we never thought that spanking, yelling at, etc. young children for going into the street would have the effects we saw. When we saw the result the first time of a young child who dashed into the street several times on a big wheel minutes after being repeatedly scolded, swatted, and threatened for doing so. The adverse effect of that parental strategy was obvious—though certainly not intended by the parents. When we taught the parents alternative strategies, the problem vanished—and the benefits lasted for more than 9 months. Chill. This is just science—not our survival as adults. Remember, science is neutral to our emotions, status needs, and pride. It's actually the data that count in the end. I would hope that people interested in this issue would be delighted that we found a way to save children from injury and death. That is way more important than pride of one up or one down on list-serves. Quote:
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