Assessing Perspective-Taking in Children through Different Formats of Deictic Framing Protocol

Abstract

The modern behavioral account of human language and cognition known as Relational Frame Theory (RFT) has argued that deictic relations are key repertoires underlying the development of the ability to take the perspective of another individual. Several studies have employed a deictic framing-based test protocol as an assessment of perspective-taking. In recent years, the format of the protocol has been modified in different studies. However, no empirical investigations have compared the original protocol with the new formats. The present chapter reports two studies that investigated whether a deictic relational protocol based on modification from recent research demonstrated better performance versus tradi-tional deictic relations measured, with typically developing children. Results of Study 1 showed that variability in the scenarios proposed by recent research could be the best option, although a series of modifications should be made for the target population. Results of Study 2 showed that a combination of both original and new protocols of deictic relations gave a better performance on the perspective-taking task in the sample used. This chapter supports the need to adapt perspective-taking protocol to the work with children. experimental procedures individually in two sessions. Sessions could be terminated upon the child ’ s request at any time (although this never occurred). The perspective-taking tasks consisted of different deictic relations protocols (explained in the Procedure) which included the three types of deictic frames (i.e., I-You, Here-There, and Now-Then) and the three levels of relational complexity (i.e., simple, reversed, and double reversed) used in the Barnes-Holmes protocol.