Teaching the Generic Skills of Language and Cognition: Contributions from Relational Frame Theory

Language and cognition are important domains in the discipline of psychology, and are often the primary focus in the study of psychological development and in the design of programs of remedial education (Lovaas, 1981; Piaget, 1967). The applied behavior analytic (ABA) approach to autism, for example, considers the establishment of language skills a primary treatment goal because these abilities are prerequisites for most other types of learning, and are frequently deficient in autistic populations (Sundberg & Michael, 2001)