Abstract:   Language dysfunction is one of the core symptoms of children with autism spectrum disorders. In 1957, Skinner put forward the concept of Verbal Behavior. He believed that the underlying process of learning to comprehend and speak language is fundamentally similar to the process of other observable behaviors, such as walking and dancing. In 2001, based on the theoretical foundation of verbal behavior, Hayes et.al proposed a new perspective of human language and cognition, Relational Frame Theory, which explains linguistic generativity in terms of learned contextually controlled relational responding referred to as relational framing. It predicts that language, especially the derived relational responding ability of children with ASD, could be learned via multiple exemplar training. Researches on ASD revealed that the enhancement of relational responding was related with the improvement of linguistic and cognitive competence. Future research could explore the learning model based on RFT to repair the language and cognition dysfunction of children with ASD.

Key words: verbal behavior, relational frame theory, derived relational responding, autism spectrum disorders, multiple exemplar training