Biography >

I am an applied developmental psychologist whose interests center on individual and situational variations in the development and use of problem-solving and language skills. I view each situation in which children find themselves, including formal assessments and experimental situations, as social contexts, and my focus is on how the dynamics of the situation foster or hinder children's learning and performance. Over the years, I have applied this perspective both to the study of variations in the performance of 'typical' children, and to the study of children identified as language or learning disordered.

As an undergraduate, I majored in Psychology and Biology and thought in terms of a doctorate in biopsychology. However, as a result of my senior thesis (on susceptibility to visual illusions), my interests moved in the direction of developmental psychology, with a particular orientation to the role of cultural institutions and child-rearing patterns in the shaping of children's perception and cognition. I went to the University of Chicago for my doctoral studies because of its emphasis on interdisciplinary scholarship. While there, I took courses in Anthropology, Linguistics, Education, and Human Development, in addition to Psychology. I emerged as a generalist, with a particular curiosity about cultural and individual differences in the pace and direction of children's development of language and cognitive skills, and a conviction that no one discipline, theoretical orientation, or methodology has a corner on the truth.

From 1978-2000, I was a faculty member in the Department of Communication Sciences & Disorders at Northwestern University, where I focused my research and teaching on children with language and learning disabilities. While at Northwestern, I worked with an interdisciplinary faculty devoted to the study of normal and atypical development and learning from a clinical perspective. Although that was a valuable experience, I eventually welcomed the opportunity to move to Michigan in the fall of 2000, so that I could work with faculty and students who take a classroom-based approach to the study of teaching and learning. For more information about my current research and teaching activities, look elsewhere on my site.

When not engaged in the world of academics, I enjoy hiking, gardening, bird watching, and other outdoor activities. I survive the Michigan winters by cross-country skiing in the woods behind our house, reading novels and working crossword puzzles. My wife and I also spend a good deal of time entertaining, and being entertained by, our two terriers and our four grandchildren.