Teaching "Then-Later" and "Here-There" Relations to Children with Autism: an Evaluation of Single Reversals and Transformation of Stimulus Function

The present study demonstrates the utility of relational training for teaching Then-Later and Here-There deictic relations for two children with autism. Mutually entailed single-reversal relations, transfers of stimulus function, and transformations of stimulus function were also evaluated for each participant. The methods were adapted from the PEAK-T curriculum. Results for both participants support the utility of relational training for teaching children with autism basic perspective-taking skills. Both participants were able to generalize the perspective-taking skills to novel sets of stimuli, and demonstrate mutually entailed responding during single-reversal tasks. Both participants were also able to demonstrate transformations of stimulus function for both Then-Later and Here-There deictic relations.