Deictic Relational Responding and Perspective-Taking in Autistic Individuals: A Scoping Review
Hold off on deictic-relational perspective-taking protocols until larger, consistent studies appear.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Hempkin et al. (2024) hunted for every paper that tried deictic-relational training to boost perspective-taking in autistic people.
They screened the world’s literature and kept only seven studies.
The team then mapped how each study defined deictic skills, ran the training, and checked for perspective-taking gains.
What they found
The seven studies used wildly different lessons, prompts, and tests.
No clear picture emerged: some kids improved, some did not, and no one used the same yardstick.
The authors conclude the evidence is too thin to recommend the intervention.
How this fits with other research
Geurts et al. (2008) already showed that autistic children could learn story rules yet still fail to shift between character minds.
That finding fits the review: even when training looks successful on paper, real-life flexibility may not follow.
Crane et al. (2016) add another layer. Pronoun reversals and echolalia can serve real communication goals.
Taken together, the three papers warn us not to treat "correct" deictic responses as proof of genuine perspective-taking.
Plate (2025) and Simeon et al. (2025) echo the same worry in other domains—heterogeneous methods and tiny samples plague autism research across the board.
Why it matters
If a parent asks you to run deictic-relational drills, you can honestly say the science is not there yet.
Spend your hours on evidence-based social-skills packages or peer-mediation programs while stronger data catch up.
Want CEUs on This Topic?
The ABA Clubhouse has 60+ free CEUs — live every Wednesday. Ethics, supervision & clinical topics.
Join Free →Stick with proven social-skills groups and document client progress while waiting for clearer deictic evidence.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
Perspective-taking skills are crucial for successful social interactions and some autistic individuals seem to demonstrate great difficulty in this area. The concept continues to generate clinical and research interest across mainstream psychology and within behavior analysis. Within behavior analysis, relational frame theorists have argued that deictic relational responding is critically involved in perspective-taking. We conducted a systematic search of the behavior analytic studies on deictic relational responding and perspective-taking in autistic individuals to highlight methods used to test perspective-taking and deictic relations, methods to train these if deficits were observed, and evidence for a relationship between deictic relational responding and perspective-taking. Seven studies met inclusion criteria and we conducted a descriptive analysis of these studies. We found some variation in the methods used to test and train perspective-taking through deictic relations. Only three of the studies attempted to demonstrate a link between deictic relational responding and perspective-taking. Overall, our review highlighted a need for more research into deictic relational responding and perspective-taking in autistic individuals, and we discussed specific areas for future research.
Perspectives on Behavior Science, 2024 · doi:10.1007/s40614-024-00397-2