Abstract
Perspective-taking, or the ability to demonstrate awareness of informational states in oneself and in others, has been of recent interest in behavioral psychology. This is, in part, a result of a modern behavioral approach to human language and cognition known as Relational Frame Theory, which views perspectivetaking as generalized operant behavior based upon a history of reinforcement for relational responding. Previous lines of research have developed a behavioral protocol for assessing relational learning deficits in perspective-taking and have implicated the lack of perspective-taking as a basis for the social deficits observed in children with autism. However, no empirical investigations have been conducted on relational learning deficits in perspective-taking with autistic populations. The present paper reports 2 experiments that investigated whether children with autism spectrum disorder demonstrated relational learning deficits in a perspective-taking task as compared to their age-matched typicalill developing peers. We also investigated whether accuracy in perspective-taking correlated with scores on standardized instruments commonly used in the assessment of autism spectrum disorder, and whether relational responding in perspective-taking improves following a history of reinforcement for such responding. Results of Experiment 1 demonstrated statistically significant differences in errors as a function of type of relation, while visual inspection revealed that partiCipants with autism spectrum disorder made more errors than typically developing children on 2 of the 3 types of relations examined. Results of Experiment 2 illustrated that a history of reinforced relational responding improved performance on the perspective-taking task.
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This investigation was supported by a research grant from TAP (The Illinois Autism Project, funded by Illinois Department of Human Services), awarded to Ruth Anne Rehfeldt. Portions of this paper were presented at the annual Southern Illinois University Phi Kappa Delta & Phi Kappa Phi Research Day, Carbondale, Illinois, April 2005, and at the annual meeting of the Association for Behavior Analysis, Chicago, Illinois, May 2005
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Rehfeldt, R.A., Dillen, J.E., Ziomek, M.M. et al. Assessing Relational Learning Deficits in Perspective-Taking in Children With High-Functioning Autism Spectrum Disorder. Psychol Rec 57, 23–47 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03395563
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03395563