The development of relational responding can be organized into a rough list that gradually becomes more and more complex. We are not presenting this list as a set of stages or steps, and we would expect them to be sequenced only in broad terms and even then only if the training history is typical. Nevertheless, this list gives a sense of the complexity that emerges from the small set of core concepts in Relational Frame Theory.
- Contextually controlled mutual entailment in equivalence
- Contextually controlled combinatorial entailment in equivalence
- Contextually controlled transfer of stimulus functions through equivalence relations
- Integration of these response components into a functional response class: a frame of coordination
- Simple examples of verbal understanding
- Contextually controlled mutual entailment in additional types of stimulus relations
- Contextually controlled combinatorial entailment in additional types of stimulus relations
- Contextually controlled transformation of stimulus functions in additional types of stimulus relations
- Integration of these into additional relational frames
- Simple examples of genuinely verbal governance of behavior by others
- Conditional contextual control over the participation of given elements in relational frames
- The development of relational networks
- More complex examples of verbal understanding
- Verbal governance of the behavior of others (e.g., verbal mands and tacts)
- Transformation of stimulus functions across relational networks
- Increasing number and complexity of relational frames
- Increasing acquisition of specific participants in specific relational frames (e.g., vocabulary)
- Complex interactions between relations (training in one influences development of another)
- Integration of related types of relational frames into families of relational responses
- Elaborated and increasingly subtle contextual control over relational responding (e.g., syntax; number of relational terms)
- Elaborated and increasingly subtle contextual control over transformation of stimulus functions (e.g., number and specificity of functional terms)
- Nonarbitrary properties serve as a relational context for arbitrarily applicable relational responses
- Increasingly complex relational networks
- With acquisition of equivalence, time or causality, and evaluation, the development of relational sentences that function fully as rules
- Relating relational networks
- Transformation of stimulus functions based on the relating of relational networks
- Relating relational networks under the control of nonarbitrary properties of the environment
- More complex examples of rule understanding and rule-governance, particularly pliance and tracking
- Regulation of the behavior of the listener through the establishment of relational networks in the listener
- With the acquisition of hierarchical class membership, use of relational networks to abstract nonarbitrary properties and to have these properties participate in relational frames
- Abstracting properties of the nonarbitrary environment based on relational networks and the relating of relational networks
- With the acquisition of temporal, contingency, and causal relational frames, increased insensitivity to temporal delays
- Development of deictic relational frames
- Development of perspective-taking and sense of self
- Construction of the verbal other
- Construction of the conceptualized group
- Contextual control of relational responding by the nonarbitrary and arbitrary properties of the listener
- Further development of rule-following, particularly augmenting
- Regulation of the behavior of the listener by orienting the listener to abstracted features of the environment
- Acquisition of increasingly abstract verbal consequences
- Self-rule generation and self rule-following
- Pragmatic verbal analysis and increasingly complex forms of problem solving and reasoning
- Increasing dominance of the verbal functions of the environment