Equivalence based instruction (EBI) has been demonstrated as an effective method for teaching various skills to a wide range of clinical and non-clinical populations. Recent research suggests deictic framing, or perspective switching skills, can be taught to typically and atypically developing children using an EBI teaching paradigm, however the protocols for teaching deictic framing tend to be very long. This study evaluated the effectiveness of a brief EBI and errorless learning program to teach deictic framing to a young woman with learning disabilities. A secondary purpose of this study was to determine if training on one deictic framing program would improve responding on skills that involve other deictic frames. The participant completed a pre and post-test before and after mastering one of four tested EBI programs. Results indicate that EBI is effective in teaching deictic frames, as derived relations emerged following training. The participant’s performance on other skills did not improve. These results also lend support to multiple exemplar teaching. Limitations and future directions for research are discussed.

Within the present study, a multiple probe design across participants was used to analyze the effect of simple and single reversal deictic relational frame training on the rate correct responding to deictic relational frames in individuals with developmental disabilities. Results showed an increase in correct responding to simple and single reversal deictic relational frames after the implementation of the intervention. Furthermore, results showed that mastery level of responding was maintained in both simple and single reversal deictic frames after once training concluded. This research contributes to body of research concerning the training of deictic frames within individuals with developmental disabilities and research concerning the use of training deictic frames using pieces of the PEAK T Curriculum. The strengths, limitations, and methods to account for these issues within future research are discussed.

Children with developmental delays often do not acquire perspective taking skills without training. These skills are imperative to the ability to relate to others socially and the development of appropriate social behavior. They may lack the ability to recognize that another person’s view may differ from their own, or that reality may differ from appearance. This study used deictic relational training to aid in the development of a ‘Theory of Mind’ and the acquisition of perspective taking skills. The PEAK relational training system was used in a special education classroom to train YOU and I relations, as well as YOU and I reversal, to two nine year old students with intellectual disability. Multiple exemplar training was then used to promote the generalization of these perspective taking skills to an in situ deceptive container task. One subject participated in the first two training phases, but was absent for the remainder of the study. The second subject successfully completed all training phases and was then able to correctly respond when asked to report what the perspective of another individual would be.

Deictic shift theory (DST) was developed as a model of the construction and comprehension of all types of fictional narrative. With respect to the participant structures of texts, however, DST researchers have focused their attention on deictic shifts in third-person narratives, leaving first-person narratives unanalyzed from this theoretical perspective. As a result, DST in its present form does not adequately account for the variety of manipulations of a range of perspectives that may be achieved in first-person narratives. Nor has DST been systematically applied to texts whose participant structures undergo extensive reorganization as the result of a surprise ending or other narrative twist. By analyzing the deictic and referring expressions that create the participant structure of Chuck Palahniuks novel Fight Club, this thesis tests DSTs potential to account for authors and readers cognitive experiences of first-person narratives with plot twists. The analysis establishes a wider range of linguistic cues that may affect readers mental representations of characters. It identifies interactions between elements in the participant structure, including those that permit the representation of non-narrating characters subjective perspectives, as well as the linguistic features that enable these interactions. The thesis examines the effects of an authors violations of traditional narrative perspective constraints, and it underscores the importance, especially in DST-motivated analyses, of recognizing the potential for interplay between general narrative constraints and the narrative structure of a specific text. The thesis revises DSTs account of the nature and extent of deictic shifts in first-person narratives and describes the role deictic shifts play in fictional narratives that contain plot twists.

Approximately 1.7 million people sustain a traumatic brain injury each year in the United States. Perspective taking is a repertoire known to be severely affected following a traumatic brain injury. The ability to take the perspective of another greatly contributes to social interactions and involves a complex set of skills. A small number of studies have attempted to train perspective taking skills in populations lacking the ability, but none with individuals diagnosed with TBI. This study aimed to teach perspective taking skills to adults with TBI through established protocols which teach deictic relational frames. Three adult males with traumatic brain injuries were exposed to the deictic relational training protocol. Each participant was tested on traditional theory of mind tasks prior to and following mastery of deictic training. All three participants achieved mastery of the relational training protocol and showed some improvement on theory of mind tasks following training and at follow-up.

AN ABSTRACT OF THE THESIS OF

Perspective taking is typically defined as the ability to reason about others’ mental states (e.g. their beliefs, thoughts, desires, and intentions) and to understand the role of those mental states in everyday situations (I. A. Apperly, 2012). Traditional accounts of perspective taking typically analyze the ability based on three different domains: visual, affective or emotional, and cognitive perspective taking (Flavell, 2004). From a behavioral viewpoint, perspective taking skills are built upon the ability to recognize our own behavior in relation to the context. Relational Frame Theory (RFT) is a contemporary behavioral account of human language and cognition (Hayes et al., 2007). From an RFT viewpoint, perspective-taking skills involve deictic relations between individuals, spaces, and time. Instead of using the three dimensions analyzed in the other fields, RFT studies the development of complex perspective-taking skills through three types of deictic frames: interpersonal (I-YOU-OTHER), spatial (HERE-THERE), and temporal (NOW-THEN-LATER). The purpose of this dissertation was to develop a set of behavioral assessments to measure visual, emotional, and cognitive perspective-taking skills from an RFT viewpoint. This dissertation made methodological and empirical contributions to the field by proposing three behavioral computer-based protocols for evaluating the role of deictic frames on visual, emotional, and cognitive perspective taking tasks. Experiment 1 results revealed significant differences in response latency and correct response levels on interpersonal and spatial deictic frames at simple and reverse levels of complexity on a visual perspective-taking task. These findings suggested that transforming stimulus functions following a mutually entailed relationship between interpersonal and spatial frames is not equivalent to performing conditional discriminations involving both interpersonal and spatial stimuli. Experiment 2 results revealed significant differences in response latency and correct response levels on interpersonal frames with simple, reverse, and double reverse levels of complexity on an emotional perspective-taking task. The finding showed that as the complexity of the deictic relations in emotional perspective taking increased, so did the number of errors and latency to respond. Furthermore, the findings of the study indicate that the valence of emotions has an effect on the levels of deictic relational responding. On a cognitive perspective-taking task, the results of Experiment 3 revealed significant differences in response latency and correct response levels on interpersonal frames with simple and reverse levels of complexity. False beliefs and false desires increased the number of errors and latency to respond to interpersonal deictic frames, according to the findings. Overall, these protocols improved the ecological validity of RFT-based protocols of deictic frames, extended previous research on perspective taking, and opened up new research avenues.

[pt] Investigações, em diferentes línguas, demonstram que crianças em aquisição apresentam dificuldades no estabelecimento de correferência com pronomes dêiticos, refletindo possível atraso na aquisição de princípios da pragmática que regulam referência pronominal (Chien e Wexler, 1990, 2009; Grolla, 2005). Pesquisas recentes sugerem que gestos paralinguísticos (ie., gesto co-fala) podem funcionar como reforço pragmático, realçando aspectos implícitos do significado (Schlenker, 2018). Na presente pesquisa, investiga-se se, na aquisição do português brasileiro, gestos co-fala aliviam dificuldades de correferência pronominal, com violação de Principio B. Foram realizados dois estudos experimentais de julgamento de valor de verdade com crianças em processo de aquisição (grupo alvo – 10 participantes) e adultos(grupo controle – 10 participantes). Os estímulos experimentais foram compostos por sentenças coordenadas, apresentadas oralmente, com pronome (nulo ou pleno) na posição de objeto da segunda oração e dois possíveis antecedentes: um na posição de sujeito da segunda oração (antecedente local) e outro na posição de objeto da primeira oração (antecedente não-local). No primeiro experimento, não houve acoplagem de gesto, tanto pronomes quanto antecedentes foram apresentados sem acompanhamento de gesto. No segundo experimento, manipulou-se acoplagem de gesto, os pronomes e possíveis antecedentes foram acompanhados de apontamento manual para localização-espacial do referente (loci-espacial). Os resultados obtidos indicam que: (a) em contextos estruturais envolvendo pronome nulo, não há diferença significativa entre os grupos alvo e controle, ambos rejeitam correfêrencia local – sem violação do Princípio B; (b) em contextos estruturais envolvendo pronome pleno, há diferença significativa entre os grupos alvo e controle, com maior aceitação de correfêrencia local no grupo alvo - violação do Princípio B. No entanto, no segundo experimento, não houve diferença significativa entre os dois grupos. Concluímos, portanto, que, durante a aquisição, o gesto co-fala de loci-espacial é computado durante a construção da correferência pronominal, neutralizando leitura de correferência com antecedente local. / [en] Researches in different languages show that children in acquisition have difficulties in establishing coreference with deictic pronouns, reflecting a possible delay in the acquisition of pragmatic principles that constraint pronominal reference (Chien and Wexler, 1990, 2009; Grolla, 2006). Recent research suggests that co-speech gestures can function as pragmatic reinforcement, reinforcing implicit aspects of meaning (Schlenker, 2018). In the present research, it is investigated whether, in the acquisition of Brazilian Portuguese, these gestures alleviate difficulties of pronominal coreference, violation of Principle B. Two experimental studies, truth value judgment tasks, were carried out with children (target group – 10 participants) and adults (control group – 10 participants). In both experiments, the experimental stimuli were composed of coordinated sentences, presented orally, with the target pronoun (null or full) in the second clause object position and two possible antecedents: one in the second clause subject position (local antecedent) and the other in the first clause object position (non-local antecedent). In the first experiment, there was no co-speech gesture, both pronouns and antecedents were presented orally only. In the second experiment, co-speech gestures (manual pointing for spatial location of the referent (spatial-loci) were added to pronouns and possible antecedents were accompanie. Obtained results indicate that: (a) in structural contexts involving null pronouns, there is no significant difference between target and control groups, both reject local coreference – without violating Principle B; (b) in structural contexts involving full pronouns, there was a significant difference between the target and control groups, with greater acceptance of local coreference in the target group - violation of Principle B. However, in the second experiment, there was no significant difference between the two groups. We conclude, therefore, that, during acquisition, the co-speech gestures of spatial-loci is computed in pronominal coreference, neutralizing readings with coreference with local antecedents.

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