hi my name is Heather Francisco and I'm
a board certified behavior analyst with
Brett DiNovi & associates
what actually passes as a behavior that
can be objectively defined accurately
measured and easily observed does your
target behavior past the Deadman's test
this is something important to think
about and ask yourself when deciding
which behaviors to actually target while
working with a particularly those in the
field of behavior analysis use the
Deadman's test to determine whether or
not the behavior being emitted can
actually be considered a behavior at all
the dead man's test was first developed
by Ogden Lindsley in 1965 he stated that
if someone who is deceased can exhibit
the behavior than it is not a behavior
and does not pass the dead man's test
essentially only living organisms have
the ability to emit behavior and in
order to measure a behavior it has to
pass the dead man's test a dead man's
test came about as a response to many
teachers who were using very loose
measures regarding the behaviors they
were targeting for example teachers were
tracking duration of on task behavior
when in reality time on task was just
students sitting at their desk and not
necessarily attending or engaging to the
task at hand another example would be
minutes without a tantrum what was the
child doing when there was no tantrum
because technically a dead man can also
not admit a tantrum one example that a
lot of us use in daily practice is
non-compliance your definition probably
says something like this failure to
comply with the demand within a certain
amount of time can a dead man fail to
comply with a demand the answer is yes
this is just some food for thought to
make you think about how you define your
target behaviors especially next time a
teacher tells you that a student is
being non-compliant and that they would
like to target this behavior a behavior
that is similar that would pass the
Deadman's test might be active refusal
you could then define what refusal looks
like including things that only a living
organism can do an example of refusal
might be responding with a vocal protest
of no or similar variation when a demand
is placed one downside to the dead man's
test is that behavior analysts have
widely accepted it without first
critically evaluating this idea
even though this test was first brought
to everyone's attention in the mid-60s
this is something that still does not
have much empirical data to support it
according to Chris field in 2016
however the biggest hurdle for
evaluating the Deadman's test is that
the reasoning behind it is somewhat
circular the Deadman's tests associates
behavior with being alive and anything a
dead person can do is not considered
behavior so a live equals behavior and
dead equals not behavior this brings us
to the next discussion that all behavior
must be observable and measurable yes
things that a dead person can do also
can be measured so behavior analysts
need to be careful about which target
behaviors they are choosing to observe
and measure behavior analysts need to
choose socially significant and active
behaviors so instead of saying a student
who is not doing one's work it could
potentially be changed to talking during
a non contextual time instead of doing
the expected tasks additionally this
behavior must be defined as such
objective clear and concise in doing so
you are more likely to have success in
your behavior passing the dead man's
test arguments have been made in favor
of the dead man's test given that there
are many observable behaviors that a
dead man cannot perform for example a
child yells help when he needs to open
the door another example would be
throwing a ball across the yard based on
our own personal experiences we can
probably correctly assume a dead person
will not be doing any of these examples
these examples suggest that we could
evaluate the dead man's test by taking
frequency data on how often a living
person emits these behaviors and how
often a dead person might admit those
behaviors according to Chris field and
shoe in 2018 chances are the living
organism is going to emit those
behaviors at a much higher rate than a
deceased one if at all in most recent
years some preliminary studies have been
conducted to evaluate the dead man's
test
a study by Critchfield and Shu again in
2018 found that when observing three
different organisms that were considered
to be deceased the behavior is being
measured
sitting up and head-turning did not
occur therefore a dead organism cannot
emit the same behavior as someone who is
alive the study demonstrates support for
the dead man's test but there still is
not enough and
Oracle evidence behind it potential
future research should focus on the
behaviors and the terminology that is
still widely being used today
this may include aggression
non-compliance property destruction on
task behavior attending absence of
challenging behaviors or elopement each
one of these target behaviors could be
put to the test to determine which ones
would actually pass the Deadman's test
thanks for watching
you
