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Abigail B. Calkin

Biography

Abigail B. CalkinAbigail 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

Abigail boatingCareer

  • 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

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