Biography

Abigail B. Calkin

• born in Boston, Massachusetts
• grew up at the family home in Framingham Centre, Massachusetts and in New York's Greenwich Village
• lived also in New Hampshire, Maine, Nova Scotia, Colorado, Scotland, Oregon, Washington, and Kansas
• now lives with her husband in a coastal bush community in Alaska

Education

• graduated from prep schools Grace Church School and Friends Seminary in New York City
• B.A. from the University of Colorado with a double major in psychology and philosophy
• studied philosophy for two years at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland
• M.A. in special education under Barbara Bateman from the University of Oregon
• Ph.D. in educational administration and school psychology from the University of Kansas under Ogden R. Lindsley

Career

• special education in Colorado
• in 1965 set up the first learning disabilities classroom in Oregon
• faculty of Western Oregon College
• school psychologist
• special and regular education administrator for the Topeka, Kansas Schools
• consults for Morningside Academy in the U.S. and Canada working with schools in academic difficulty
• chair of Og Lindsley's Archives Committee
• past president of the Standard Celeration Society, member of the Association for Behavior Analysis, the National Association of School Psychologists, and a charter member of the Standard Celeration Society

Honorary Compendia Listings

• Who's Who of Business and Professional Women
• Two Thousand Notable American Women
• Who's Who of American Women
• Who's Who in Child Development
• Outstanding Teachers in Special Education

Former Consulting Editor

• Journal of Precision Teaching and Celeration
• The Behavior Analyst
• Inscape, a literary journal

Writing

Her lifelong interest in writing began before she started school: She hid in her closet and wrote fanciful tales about the big house on the hill where she lived with her large, extended family.

• 40 published poems
• 40 articles in the educational and behavior analytic fields of
  precision teaching
• education books—Pebbles, Mops, and Thimigs (1974); Eating with a
  Spoon (1975); Toilet Training: Help for the Delayed Learner (1978)
• novels—Nikolin, (1994) short-listed for a Benjamin Franklin Award;
  The Carolyne Letters (1995)
• current books in progress—non-fiction: a commercial fishing disaster; how to change thoughts, feelings, and urges; and leaving the urban life for a peaceful life in a remote Alaskan village; poetry collection on loss