Charles Melvin Heuchert died 20 September 2011 in Waynesboro (VA, US). Professor Heuchert, who was known as Chuck by many friends and colleagues, was born on 30 August 1933 in Henning (MN, US) to Karl and Amanda Lueker Heuchert. He was a veteran of the United States Air Force and a four-time graduate of the University of Michigan, completing Ph.D. studies in 1969.

After teaching engagements at Syracuse University, the University of Michigan, and Eastern Michigan University, Chuck joined the faculty at the University of Virginia. He was a member of the faculty at U.Va. in the special education program from 1969 through his retirement in 1998, serving in various capacities including as assistant and then associate dean for undergraduate studies and licensure.

Throughout a career that began as a teacher and spanned 40 years, Chuck was an active advocate for students with emotional and behavior disorders and a champion of compassion and caring for student’s emotional needs, promoting child-centered methods such as Life-Space Interviewing and Reality Therapy. In 1973 Chuck co-authored Pain & Joy in School with Edward W. Schultz and Susan M. Stampf and in 1983 he co-authored Child Stress and the School Experience with Schultz. In 1987-88 he served as president of the International Council for Exceptional Children, the world’s largest organization devoted to improving services for individuals with disabilities and the gifted.

Read an obituary from the Waynesboro News Virginian and the Curry School’s in memoriam

Before his academic career, Professor Rhodes served in the US Army, achieving the rank of Captain. He completed bachelors and masters degrees at Emory University and took a doctoral degree in psychology from The Ohio State University. Professor Rhodes began his academic career at Vanderbilt University in the 1950s, working with Nicholas Hobbs. He then joined Eli Bower at the National Institute of Mental Health before going to the University of Michigan. After teaching and conducting research at the University of Michigan until 1980, Professor Rhodes finished his academic career as a senior scholar and visiting professor at the University of South Florida, where he taught until 2005.

An early paper in Exceptional Children by Professor Rhodes established his views about the reciprocal connection between children and their communities. Professsor Rhodes’ work on the Conceptual Project in Child Variance while at the University of Michigan in the early 1970s had substantial impact on special education for children and youth with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD). The project resulted in a multi-volume publication called A Study of Child Variance that presented perspectives on EBD based on conceptual models popular at that time—biological, behavioral, psychodynamic, sociological, and ecological—and that ultimately set him on a path to adopting a view that taking a critical view was better than taking any particular theoretical view. His early-career interest in ecological approaches progressed into a later-career embrace of liberatory theory and post-modernism.

Professor Rhodes was the son of William and Nell Rhodes. He is survived by his wife, Estelle Smith Rhodes, whom he met and married in 1942; their children William Rhodes, III, Joseph Rhodes, Naomi Rhodes, and Trisha Rhodes; siblings; and eleven grandchildren.

Rhodes, W. C. (1967). The disturbing child: A problem of ecological management. Exceptional Children, 33, 449-455.

Rhodes, W. C. (1975). A study of child variance. Vol. 4: The future. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

Rhodes, W. C., & Head, S. (Eds.) (1974). A study of child variance. Vol. 3: Service devlivery systems. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

Rhodes, W. C., & Paul, J. L. (1978). Emotionally disturbed and deviant children: New views and approaches. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Rhodes, W. C., & Tracy, M. (Eds.) (1974a). A study of child variance. Vol. 1: Conceptual models. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

Rhodes, W. C., & Tracy, M. (Eds.) (1974b). A study of child variance. Vol. 2: Interventions. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

(My thanks to the Rhodes children for sharing recollections of their father’s life with me and to Jim Paul for his help with some of these facts.—JohnL)

Through extensive public exposure by speaking engagements and appearances on radio and television, Dr. Levine was able to promote his ideas about emphasizing the strengths of children with disabilities and of providing simplified explanations of their problems to the children themselves.

Dr. Levine’s reputation was tarnished by lawsuits alleging molestation of young patients during examinations for learning disabilities.

In the early 1960s, Professor Lovaas accepted an appointment at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) where he continued his behavioral studies of child development but soon began to study children with autism and childhood schizophrenia. Although he briefly considered moving his research operation to Oregon in the 1970s, Professor Lovaas stayed at UCLA throughout the remainder of his career, retiring in 2003. He also founded and directed the Lovaas Institute for Early Intervention (LIFE).

Collaborating initially with James Q. Simmons and later with many students who have become prominent researchers in their own right, Professor Lovaas conducted extensive research about autism. Early studies examined punishment procedures for reducing self-injurious behavior and shaping procedures for promoting language. As the work progressed, these procedures were refined into a system for teaching that employed frequent repetition of brief activities—discrete trials—with detailed monitoring of students’ responses. Perhaps the most widely known study from this era is the 1987 report describing the functioning of children treated with the discrete-trials methods: “Behavioral treatment and normal educational and intellectual functioning in young autistic children.”

The extensive work on systematic instructional procedures for teaching language, social interaction, and other skills led to the publication of Teaching Developmentally Disabled Children: The ME Book, a book that has guided many people’s efforts to help children with substantial behavior problems. A long-anticipated revision of “The Me Book,” Teaching Individuals with Developmental Delays: Basic Intervention Techniques, appeared in 2003.

Professor Lovaas’ work has been celebrated by many. He received the Distinguished Research Contribution Award from the American Psychological Association (APA) as well as the Edgar Doll Award from APA’s Division 33 (Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities). The Society for the Advancement of Behavior Analysis awarded him its award for Effective Presentation of Behavior Analysis in the Mass Media to Professor Lovaas.

Reference

Lovaas, O. (1987). Behavioral treatment and normal educational and intellectual functioning in young autistic children. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 55, 3-9. doi:10.1037/0022-006X.55.1.3.

Kimberly L. Bright, associate professor of special education at Shippensburg University, died the 30 June 2010 in Harrisburg (PA, US).

Born 26 June 1957, she held degrees from several institutions of higher education. She received a bachelor’s degree from Millersville University, a master’s degree from Shippensburg University, and a doctoral degree from the Pennsylvania State University.

Prof. Bright began her career as a special education teacher. Later she became the director of special education for a local education agency in Pennsylvania.

Prof. Bright served as treasurer for the Division for Learning Disabilities (DLD), an organization that she had previously served as the student representative, while completing graduate studies. In addition to her contributions to DLD, Prof. Bright also was active in the Pennsylvania chapter of the Council for Exceptional Children.

In addition to teaching courses about students with disabilities and effective teaching procedures, Prof. Bright also supervised many students during their practica. According to her colleague, David Bateman, “she is considered a mentor by many of the areas best teachers.” To review comments by some of those individuals, read the tributes posted on her Facebook page.

Link to the obituary published by Hoover Funeral Homes.

Edward Gary Carr, professor of psychology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, died 20 June 2009 in an automobile accident. Professor Carr, who was know as “Ted” to friends and colleagues, conducted foundational studies about the functions that self-injurious behaviors served and contributed substantially to the development and refinement of methods known as “positive behavioral supports.” In addition, he assessed the benefits of teaching sign language to children with serious language problems such as Autism.

Professor Carr completed a doctoral degree at the University of California San Diego in 1973, worked briefly at the University of California Los Angeles, and then joined the faculty at Stony Brook where, in 2000, he was accorded the honor of an appointment as Leading Professor. During his tenure at Stony Brook he authored or co-authored scores of articles, chapters, monographs, and books; mentored many students; worked with organizations in the US and abroad; and founded and directed the Research & Training Center on Positive Behavior Support for Autism & Developmental Disabilities. His many publications include the books Communication-Based Intervention for Problem Behavior and How to Teach Sign Language to Developmentally Disabled Children.

Early in his career, Professor Carr began examining alternative explanations for self-injurious behavior among individuals with Autism, publishing “The Motivation of Self-injurious Behavior: A Review of Some Hypotheses” in the prestigious journal, Psychological Bulletin in 1977. Over the ensuing years he and colleagues increased the understanding of how self-injurious and other problem behavior might operate on the children’s environments, in effect serving a communicative function. He and others used this knowledge to develop and refine the procedures of functional behavior assessment. The work on humane means of reducing problem behaviors led Professor Carr and others to promote the methods of positive behavioral supports.

Link to biographical information about Professor Carr, a university-maintained page about him, and the Research & Training Center on Positive Behavior Support for Autism & Developmental Disabilities.

Ken Kavale

Kenneth A. Kavale, a noted scholar who studied learning disabilities, emotional and behavioral disorders, intellectual disabilities, and special education policies, died Saturday 13 December 2008 in Virginia Beach (VA, US). Professor Kavale, who was born in 1946 in Brooklyn (NY, US) and was most recently a distinguished professor at Regent University in Virginia Beach (VA, US), was widely known for his work on the nature, assessment, and treatment of students with disabilities. He was author or co-author of hundreds of articles, book chapters, and books and had presented scores of papers at professional meetings, conferences, and other public venues.

Professor Kavale, who had previously taught at the University of Georgia, University of Colorado, University of California at Riverside, and University of Iowa, earned a bachelors degree from Brooklyn College of the City University of New York and a Ph.D. in 1976 from the University of Minnesota. He was widely known for having examined many aspects of special education policy and practice by systematically reviewing extant research. He was among the first to apply the methods of meta-analysis in education, and many of his reviews, which were conducted with his collaborator Steven R. Forness of the University of California at Los Angeles, revealed the weak or essentially absent scientific basis of some early special education interventions.

Professor Kavale also wrote more traditional analyses of the literature, bringing both a historical and scientific perspective to contemporary topics in special education. He published these works as books with titles such as these:

• The Science of Learning Disabilities (1985; with S. R. Forness);
• Handbook of Learning Disabilities: Dimensions and Diagnosis (1987; with S. R. Forness & M. Bender).
• The Nature of Learning Disabilities: Critical Elements of Diagnosis and Classification (1995; with S. R. Forness);
• Efficacy of Special Education and Related Services (1999; with S. R. Forness & G. N. Siperstein);
• The Positive Side of Special Education: Minimizing its Fads, Fancies, and Follies (2004; with M. P. Mostert);
• Challenging the Refusal of Reason in Special Education (2008; edited with M. Mostert & J. Kauffman.

Professor Kavale was the founding editor of Learning Disabilities Research (now Learning Disabilities Research & Practice) and served on the editorial boards of many other scholarly journals. Among the many honors accorded Professor Kavale were his election in 2008 to serve as president-elect of the Division for Learning Disabilities of the Council for Exceptional Children and his appointment to the executive board of the Learning Disability Association of America.

Link to Professor Kavale’s biography at Regent University, a bio for the Iowa Academy of Education, and a list of publications accessible via Google Scholar. See a video of Professor Kavale speaking about the discrepancy concept and its contribution to the identification of students with Learning Disabilities (snippet via the National Research Center on Learning Disabilities). Also see the ZoomInfo entry about Professor Kavale.

Original post 12:43 PM Monday 15 December.

Update (5:30 PM Monday 15 December): Regent University has issued a press release reporting Ken’s passing.

Update (5:30 AM Wednesday 17 December): Links to a post on EBD Blog and three posts (one, two, and three) on LD Blog referring to Professor Kavale’s work.