The Behavior Analyst 1986, 9, 241-242 No. 2 (Fall) In Memoriam Eric C. Haughton 1934-1985

Brilliant, creative, warm, humorous, came a research assistant to Fred Skinner kind, gentle, caring, energetic, loving- and Jim Holland in the Center for Pro- those were the most frequent adjectives grammed Instruction at Harvard from written by an audience ofapproximately 1961 to 1963. We met when Eric visited 300 teachers attending a Precision Harvard's Behavior Research Labora- Teaching conference in Orlando, Florida tory at Metropolitan State Hospital where in April 1980. The teachers wrote their I was analyzing psychotic behavior. We adjectives in a one-minute timed writing. had many all-night discussions following They were describing Eric Haughton. a typically superb dinner in Eric's and At 2:30 PM on Thursday, 11 July 1985, Sandy's Beacon Hill apartment. Often, Eric Christian Haughton lost his nineteen Paul Touchette and Bea Barrett were also month bout with liver cancer and the dinner guests at the Haughton salon. world lost a great man. Applied behavior Excited by our plan to teach special analysis lost one ofits first and most ded- education teachers to monitor their pu- icated contributors. Precision Teaching pils' rate ofresponse, Eric and Ann Dun- lost one of its founders and the major can preceded me to the University of force in developing the concept and pro- Kansas in September 1964. Eric was my cedures of behavior fluency. fourth doctorate. His dissertation, "A Eric was born in , , and Practical Way of Individually Tailoring was adopted at birth by a lawyer and his Classroom Consequences," displayed ac- wife. His zest for learning started early ademic behavior frequencies on 6 cycle with Latin and French lessons while he by 40 day charts and was accepted in rode his tricycle. He attended grade and October 1967. It used "assay forms" high schools in Ottawa and went on to which were the precursors of the cur- obtain his B.A. in Philosophy and Psy- rently popular precision teaching prac- chology at the University ofWestern On- tice sheets. tario. Eric also obtained a bit of campus As an assistant professor in Special Ed- notoriety by driving home from a pub ucation, Eric taught at the University of one night in a public transportation bus Oregon from 1967 through 1971, train- which the driver had left temporarily un- ing Abigail Calkin, Clay and Ann Starlin, attended while having a cup of coffee. Owen White, Martin Waechter, and From 1960 to 1961 Eric joined Ted Chuck Zimmerman, among others. He Ayllon at the psychiatric hospital in Wey- moved Precision Teaching into regular burn, Saskatchewan. They produced the education with Ann Starlin's first grade very first landmark behavior modifica- classroom at Santa Clara School in Eu- tion projects. Jack Michael advised this gene. They pioneered daily one-minute research from Houston. Their satiation timings and entire classrooms ofprimary ofthe towel hoarder and treatment ofthe graders charting two or three oftheir ac- broom holder are truly applied behavior ademic behaviors each day. analysis classics, even though the term Single for some time after his first mar- "Applied Behavior Analysis" was not yet riage to Sandy, Eric met Elizabeth Free- coined. man at the first California Behavior Eric received his M.A. in Clinical and Modification conference at Napa in 1971. Experimental Psychology from the Uni- They married and together they made a versity of in 1962. Wanting to fine, highly sensitive, creative precision get closer to educating children, Eric be- teaching team-Elizabeth with her ex- 242 IN MEMORIAM tensive classroom skills and experience Eric used the Standard Celeration Chart and Eric with his creative approaches to exclusively to analyze and summarize monitoring and chart analysis. behavior. He also always used the "Is- From 1971 through 1972 Eric devel- does" equations to separate potential op- oped practice sheets for the complete erant behavioral components clearly from range of elementary instruction with their demonstrated functions. In Belle- Harold Kunzelmann in the Clover Park ville, Eric began comparing the different School District, Tacoma, Washington. behavior channels. Using the alternative Then, after one year in Seattle, Eric took hear-write, hear-say, or see-say channels, the chair of Exceptional Education and when school children are having diffi- assistant professor at York University, culty learning in the see-write channel, is Toronto. While he edited Special Edu- one of Precision Teaching's most pow- cation in circulation rose from erful diagnostic and remedial tools. 2,300 to 3,400. Eric taught at York from The learning channels from Belleville 1972 through 1974 and while there he joined with the one-minute timings from trained Mary Kovaks. Oregon, the practice sheets from Ta- Eric and Elizabeth located a supportive coma, and the fluency aims from Toron- superintendent and set up a twelve-year to, to form Eric's quartet of major con- experiment in the Hastings County Board tributions to Precision Teaching practice. of Education, Belleville, Ontario. Eric's He was refining his matrix of learning long-range plan was to start first graders channels when he became ill. charting their own learning and move the Even though he focused more on work- children up a year at a time until they shops for teachers than on published ar- would be high school seniors, fluent in ticles for academics, Eric authored 29 all their skills, who had charted their own published articles, edited onejournal, was learning for all twelve years of school. on the boards of three others, and had Eric hoped to use their standard achieve- eight articles in preparation when he died. ment test scores to demonstrate the ef- Eric was in such pain during his last fectiveness of Precision Teaching. year that he could not attend to the Mac- While at Hastings County, Eric inte- intosh computer he bought to process his grated Precision Teaching with Direct In- unpublished documents. Rather, he spent struction. This wedded education's most most ofthat last year sailing, an old love powerful monitoring system with its most from childhood days on the Ottawa Riv- powerful curriculum. Eric also supported er. In fact, for those last months he spent taking these methods into private schools more time on the water than on land. under the direction of Michael Maloney Elizabeth, always solicitous, caring and in Belleville, Kent Johnson in Seattle, and loving, with the same penchant for sail- Ian and Eilene Spence in Connecticut. ing, crewed every voyage. After four years, the Hastings super- He also developed a new skill and intendent moved to a bigger district, love-silversmithing. One ofhis favorite leaving Eric and Elizabeth with their gifts was a silver ring with a width ofthe twelve-year experiment only one-third times-two frequency difference on the complete. Eric and Elizabeth stayed on Standard Celeration Chart. A one-week- in Belleville and continued developing long gold bar was soldered on each ring ever-increasing behavior aims. Some at the 33 degree angle of a times-two per reading fluencies were over 300 per min- week learning. ute. Together, they demonstrated that Brilliant, creative, warm, humorous, high fluency guarantees accuracy, reten- kind, gentle, caring, energetic, loving- tion, endurance, and application. Eric yet, those 300 Orlando teachers were very trained Michael Maloney and Ann right. So lived and loved Eric Haughton. DesJardins in Belleville, and advised Ray Beck and the model Precision Teaching Ogden R. Lindsley Project in Great Falls, Montana. University of Kansas