Donald M. Baer, Roy A. Roberts Distinguished Professor of Human Development and Family Life (HDFL) at the University of Kansas, died unexpectedly of heart failure at his home in Lawrence, KS on Sunday evening, April 28, 2002. Don was born in St. Louis, MO October 25, 1931, son of George and Ida (Feldman) Baer. He grew up in Chicago, joined the Kansas faculty in 1965, died at the age of 70, and was to retire this June. He is survived by his wife, Elsie Pinkston, Professor in the School of Social Services Administration at the University of Chicago, three daughters by his earlier marriage to Ann Marshall - Ruth Baer (Lexington, KY), Miriam Baer (Durham, NC), and Deborah Baer (Franklin, WI) -- and his brother, Robert Baer (Mill Valley, CA).
Don was an internationally renowned member of several generations of basic, applied, and developmental psychologists. He received his A.B. with honors from the University of Chicago in 1950. In 1957, he earned a doctorate in experimental psychology under the supervision of Jacob L. Gewirtz (Florida International University). Between 1957 and 1965, Sidney W. Bijou and Don established the "behavior analysis" approach to child development at the University of Washington (e.g., Bijou & Baer, 1961; see also Baer, 1970, 1976), where Don also contributed fundamentally to the experimental analysis of child behavior (e.g., Baer, 1960; Gewirtz & Baer, 1958). On the basis of pioneering work by Montrose M. Wolf and Todd R. Risley, Don and they formally founded the discipline of applied behavior analysis at the University of Kansas in the late 1960s, where it flourished thereafter. Applied behavior analysis provides a framework for empirically-based interventions into problems of individual, social, and cultural importance (e.g., developmental disabilities, mental retardation, chronic aberrant behavior; see Baer, Wolf, & Risley, 1968, 1987).
In all, Don published over two hundred articles, chapters, and books, and made many more presentations. In so doing, he contributed significantly (a) to the literature on experimental methods and design (e.g., Hains & Baer, 1989; Horner & Baer, 1978; Parsonson & Baer, 1978); (b) to intervention research in early childhood education (e.g., Baer & Bushell, 1981; Baer, Rowbury, & Baer, 1973), developmental disabilities and mental retardation (e.g., Warren, Baxter, Anderson, Marshall, & Baer, 1981), chronic aberrant behavior (e.g., Silverman, Watanabe, Marshall, & Baer, 1984), and the generalization of those treatment outcomes (see Stokes & Baer, 1977); (c) to basic and applied research in human behavior (e.g., Baer, 1962), language development (e.g., Guess, Sailor, Rutherford, & Baer, 1968), self-regulation (e.g., Herbert & Baer, 1972; Rogers-Warren & Baer, 1976), social development (e.g., Hart, Reynolds, Baer, Brawley, & Harris, 1968), and imitation (e.g., Baer & Sherman, 1964); (d) to behavior-analytic and developmental theory (e.g., Baer, 1982; Riegler & Baer, 1989); and (d) to disciplinary and professional topics (e.g., Baer, 1981). He also served as an expert witness, testifying on behalf of parents who sought the best possible education for their autistic children
Don was the intellectual leader of the Department, and among the most significant contributors to the Bureau of Child Research, now the Schiefelbusch Lifespan Institute (LSI). Frances Degan Horowitz (City University of New York) established the Department in 1963. Under her administrative guidance, she and Don built a program in behavior analysis and developmental psychology of international stature (Baer, 1993). The program was the recipient of many years of continuous training grant funding from the National Institute of Mental Health, and in 2000 was the first academic program to receive an award from the Society for the Advancement of Behavior Analysis (SABA) for Enduring Programmatic Contributions to Behavior Analysis. As a Senior Scientist in the LSI, Don contributed actively in securing federally funded grants for research in every area of his research.
Don advised over 100 graduate students at the University of Kansas, many of them now leaders in their own fields (e.g., behavior therapy, education, public health, social work, special education). His graduate course in research methods and design -- HDFL 803: Experimental Child Study -- was required of every student who ever earned a doctorate in the program. The Department "retired" Don's number late this spring; the course content will have a different number and name. Beloved by his past and present students, Don was honored by them on April 12-14 this year with a conference (i.e., paper and poster sessions) and a banquet - a BaerFest - held at the KU. It celebrated his contributions to behavior analysis and developmental psychology, his teaching and mentoring, and his impending retirement. Over 100 colleagues traveled from across the nation and abroad in order to be with him (e.g., from Brazil, Japan, New Zealand, Norway).
Under the leadership of Professor Emeritus Barbara C. Etzel, the Department, this spring, established a Donald M. Baer Faculty Award with the University of Kansas Endowment Association. In its words:
The Award shall be given to a full professor of Human Development and Family Life. The award will acknowledge outstanding contributions to the experimental analysis of behavior, applied analysis of behavior, or the conceptual analysis of behavior as they pertain to our understanding and possible improvement of any part of human development across the lifespan.
Once fully funded, the Award will support a half-time graduate research assistant for the recipient. The Baer family requests that gifts in Don's name be contributed to this Award or to the University's National Public Radio station -- KANU.1
Don received many awards during his lifetime, among them the 1987 Don Hake Award from Division 25 (Behavior Analysis) of the American Psychological Association (APA) for work that bridges basic and applied research, APA's 1996 Division 33 (Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities) Edgar A. Doll Award for his contributions to people with developmental disabilities, and the 1997 award for Distinguished Service to Behavior Analysis from SABA. He also served as president of the Society for the Experimental Analysis of Behavior (1983-1984) and the Association for Behavior Analysis (1980-1981), as the editor of the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis (1970-1971) and the associate editor of this and other journals (e.g., American Journal of Mental Deficiency), and as a reviewer of federal grants and for numerous additional scientific journals. Don was also widely invited to give colloquia, and was often an international distinguished visiting professor (e.g., in Australia, Brazil, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, Spain). This summer, he was to have been a distinguished visiting professor in Poland, then later in Brazil.
Don will be remembered for his intellectual brilliance and wit, his high standards for experimental proof, his incisive logic in conceptual analysis, his deep and abiding concern for creating and disseminating empirically-based interventions, his advocacy on the behalf of individuals with mental and developmental disabilities, and his great generosity and good will toward students and junior colleagues. He will be deeply and sorely missed, and fondly and forever remembered.
Services for Don were held at the First United Methodist Church in Lawrence, KS on Friday, May 3 at 1:30 pm. They included a string quartet, a minister, a rabbi, comments from James A. Sherman on behalf of the Department, comments from John Smagner on behalf of the students, poems selected and written by the Baer family and read by Harlan Roedel, a eulogy composed by the family, and closing prayers. A reception followed. The burial took place at 7:00 that evening at the University's Pioneer cemetery on West Campus.
Don had a framed quotation from Adlai Stevenson in his office. It was reprinted in the program for the services. It was this:
Here on the prairies of the Middle West we can see a long way in all directions. We look east, to west, to north, and south. Our commerce, our ideas, come and go in all directions. Here there are no barriers, no defenses to ideas and aspirations. We want no shackles on the mind or the spirit, no rigid pattern of thought, no iron conformity. We want only the faith and conviction that triumph in free and fair contests.
Baer, D. M. (1960). Escape and avoidance behaviors of preschool children on two schedules of reinforcement withdrawal. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 3,
Baer, D. M. (1961). The effect withdrawal of positive reinforcement on an extinguishing response in young children. Child Development, 32.
Baer, D. M. (1970). An age-irrelevant concept of development. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 16,
Baer, D. M. (1976). The organism as host. Human Development, 19, 87-98.
Baer, D. M. (1981). A flight of behavior analysis. The Behavior Analyst, 4, 85-91.
Baer, D. M. (1982). The imposition of structure on behavior and the demolition of behavioral structures. In D. J. Bernstein (Ed.), Response structure and organization. Nebraska Symposium on Motivation. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press.
Baer, D. M. (1993). A brief, selective history of the Department of Human Development and Family Life at the University of Kansas: The early years. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 26, 569-572.
Baer, D. M., & Bushell, D. (1981). The future of behavior analysis in the schools? Consider the recent past, and then ask a different question. School Psychology Review, 10, 259-270.
Baer, A. M., Rowbury, T. G., & Baer, D. M. (1973). The development of instructional control over classroom activities of deviant preschool children. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 6,
Baer, D. M., & Sherman, J. A. (1964). Reinforcement control of generalized imitation in young children. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 32,
Baer, D. M., Wolf, M. M., & Risley, T. R. (1968). Some current dimensions of applied behavior analysis. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 1,
Baer, D. M., Wolf, M. M., & Risley, T. R. (1987). Some still current dimensions of applied behavior analysis. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 20, 313-327.
Bijou, S. W., & Baer, D. M. (1961). Child development, Vol. 1: A systematic and empirical theory. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts
Gewirtz, J. L., & Baer, D. M. (1958). Deprivation and satiation of social reinforcers as drive conditions. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 56,
Guess, D., Sailor, W., Rutherford, G, & Baer, D. M. (1968). An experimental analysis of linguistic development: The productive use of the plural morpheme. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 1,
Hains, A. H., & Baer, (1989). Interaction effects in multi-element designs: Inevitable, desirable, and ignoble. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 22, 57-69.
Hart, B. M., Reynolds, N. J., Baer, D. M., Brawley, E. R., & Harris, F. R. (1968). Effect of contingent and noncontingent social reinforcement on the cooperative play of a preschool child. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 1,
Herbert, E. W., & Baer, D. M. (1972). Training parents as behavior modifiers: Self recording of contingent attention. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 5,
Horner, R. D., & Baer, D. M. (1978). Multiple-probe technique: A variation of the multiple baseline. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 11, 189-196.
Parsonson, B. S., & Baer, D. M. (1978). The analysis and presentation of graphic data. In T. Kratochwill (Ed.), Single subject research. New York: Academic Press.
Riegler, H. C., & Baer, D. M. (1989). A developmental analysis of rule-following. In H. W. Reese (Ed.), Advances in child development and behavior (Vol. 21). San Diego: Academic Press.
Rogers-Warren, A., & Baer, D. M. (1976). Saying and doing: The verbal mediation of social behaviors. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 9, 335-354.
Silverman, K., Watanabe, K., Marshall, A. M., & Baer, D. M. (1984). Reducing self injury and corresponding self-restraint through strategic use of protective clothing. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 17, 545-552.
Stokes, T. F., & Baer, D. M. (1977). An implicit technology of generalization. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 10, 349-367.
Warren, S. F., Baxter, D. K., Anderson, S. R., Marshall, A. M., & Baer, D. M. (1981). Generalization and maintenance of question-asking by severely retarded individuals. Journal of the Association for the Severely Handicapped, 6, 15-22.
1 Contributions to the Donald M. Baer Faculty Award may be sent to the University of Kansas Endowment Association, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS 66045 or to Ms. Wanda Lowe, Department of Human Development and Family Life, Dole Human Development Center, University of Kansas, 1000 Sunnyside Avenue, Lawrence, KS 66045. Contributions to KANU may be sent to Broadcasting Hall, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas 66045.
Correspondence may be sent to the Department of Human Development and Family Life, 4001 Dole Human Development Center, University of Kansas, 1000 Sunnyside Avenue, Lawrence, KS 66045. Ph: 785-864-4840; fax: 785-864-5202; e-mail: hdfl@ku.edu
