By Matt Harrington, BCBA · Behaviorist Book Club · Research-backed answers for behavior analysts
Deictic relational frames are the I/You, Here/There, and Now/Then relational frames through which individuals establish their perspective relative to others and across time. They are the behavioral foundation of perspective-taking — the ability to understand that others occupy a different spatial, temporal, and psychological vantage point than oneself. According to Relational Frame Theory, deictic frames are not innate capacities but learned relational repertoires established through a history of verbal contingencies. This means they can be systematically trained, which has significant implications for programming perspective-taking in individuals with ASD.
Weil, Hayes, and Capurro demonstrated that a structured deictic relational training protocol could establish perspective-taking repertoires in young children. Their training sequenced simple, reversed, and double-reversed instances of each deictic frame, progressively increasing relational complexity. Children who completed the training showed generalization to novel scenarios not presented during training and demonstrated performance on Theory of Mind tasks consistent with established perspective-taking. The study supports the RFT-based account of perspective-taking as a derived relational repertoire that is learnable through structured training.
Simple deictic trials require responding from one's own perspective directly: What do I see? What do you have? Reversed trials require taking the other person's perspective: What do you see from where I am? What would I see if I were standing where you are? Double-reversed trials involve nested perspective shifts requiring the child to track multiple relational frames simultaneously: What would you see if you were standing where I was when I was looking at the ball? Difficulty increases from simple to reversed to double-reversed, and mastery at each level is prerequisite for the next.
RFT proposes that Theory of Mind emerges from a history of learning deictic relational frames — I/You, Here/There, Now/Then — in increasingly complex combinations. As these frames are learned, the individual develops the capacity to derive novel perspective relations without direct training for each specific instance. False belief understanding, a classic Theory of Mind marker, requires tracking that another person's belief state (now) differs from the current state of affairs — a temporal and perspectival relational combination. RFT frames this as derived relational responding from a learned repertoire rather than as an emerging cognitive module.
Prerequisite skills for deictic frame training include: basic receptive and expressive language sufficient to follow and produce simple relational instructions; some capacity for listener responding to novel verbal stimuli; imitation of vocal verbal models; and the ability to attend to and discriminate between stimuli in the training context. Learners who lack these prerequisites will need foundational language programming before deictic frame training is introduced. The presence of simple deictic responding — correctly identifying what one can see versus what another can see in direct observation conditions — is a meaningful entry criterion.
Acceptance and Commitment Training is a therapeutic approach grounded in RFT that targets psychological flexibility — the ability to contact the present moment as an observing self, defuse from unhelpful verbal rules, and engage in values-consistent behavior. The observing-self or self-as-context concept in ACT is directly related to deictic framing: the capacity to observe one's own mental content from a consistent perspective is supported by a robust deictic relational repertoire. For BCBAs, ACT principles are applicable both in adapted clinical programming for clients and in developing the reflective and values-based practice stance that characterizes effective behavior analytic work.
Generalization in deictic frame training involves correct responding on novel instances of each frame type and complexity level not presented during training — new people, new objects, new spatial arrangements, new temporal scenarios. The occurrence of generalization is evidence that derived relational responding is established: the learner is responding in accordance with the relational frame rather than memorizing specific trained instances. Generalization probes should be administered at regular intervals using materials not included in the training set, and data should be graphed separately from acquisition data to confirm that the relational repertoire is generative.
Traditional social skills training typically targets specific behavioral topographies — initiating greetings, maintaining conversation, joint attention bids — through modeling, role-play, and reinforcement of correct performance. Deictic frame training targets the underlying relational repertoire that makes social behavior genuinely perspective-sensitive rather than topographically correct. A child who has been trained to ask "What are you doing?" has learned a specific verbal response; a child with an established deictic relational repertoire can derive novel perspective-sensitive responses in situations they have not encountered before. The difference is between rote social behavior and a generative social cognitive repertoire.
Code 2.01 requires practicing within areas of competence, which for RFT-based procedures means developing adequate familiarity with RFT as a theoretical framework before implementing derived relational responding training. Code 2.01 also requires using evidence-based practices; the Weil, Hayes, and Capurro study and the broader RFT perspective-taking literature provide the empirical foundation for this competency. Code 6.01 requires selecting the least intrusive, most effective procedures — deictic frame training is a naturalistic, reinforcement-based approach that aligns with this principle. Practitioners implementing ACT-based components with clients should ensure these fall within their scope of practice.
Data systems for deictic frame training should track performance by frame type (I/You, Here/There, Now/Then) and by complexity level (simple, reversed, double-reversed) separately, generating a matrix of accuracy data across all six combinations. Each cell in this matrix represents a distinct training target with its own mastery criterion and generalization probe schedule. Session data should be collected on a trial-by-trial basis with the trial type recorded, allowing error pattern analysis by frame and complexity. Generalization probe data should be recorded separately from acquisition data and reviewed at weekly or biweekly supervision meetings.
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All behavior-analytic intervention is individualized. The information on this page is for educational purposes and does not constitute clinical advice. Treatment decisions should be informed by the best available published research, individualized assessment, and obtained with the informed consent of the client or their legal guardian. Behavior analysts are responsible for practicing within the boundaries of their competence and adhering to the BACB Ethics Code for Behavior Analysts.