History

Background and Context

The Department's long past lies in the founding of KU's Department of Home Economics in 1910, which was transformed in 1964 into the Department of Human Development and Family Life - an applied behavioral science department.

Its research informed KU's Bureau of Child Research, now part of the Life Span Institute (LSI), and was informed by developmental and biobehavoral sciences.

The Department of Applied Behavioral Science has always had one of the largest and most productive behavior analysis faculty in the world with the departments' founding faculty members being Donald M. Baer (1931-2002) and Montrose Wolf (1935-2004). In 1968, its faculty members founded the field's premier research journal, the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis and the Department then grew large and famously successful. In 1990, it moved into the Dole Human Development Center, funded, in part, in recognition of its achievements. In 2000, it had over 25 faculty members and 200 graduate students, and received the Award from the Association for Behavior Analysis International (ABAI) for Enduring Programmatic Contributions. Between 2001 and 2004, it bolstered the undergraduate curriculum and made over the graduate program, the latter according to ABAI's accreditation standards. In 2004, it became the Department of Applied Behavioral Science.

Baer, D. M. (1994). A brief, selective history of the Department of Human Development and Family Life at the University of Kansas: The early years. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 26, 569-572.

The Department is featured in the annual Behavioral History Tour, a guided walking and driving tour of the history of behavior analysis at the University of Kansas and in Lawrence, Kansas from 1964 to the present. Its mission is to advance education and scholarship in the field’s history, including its institutional histories, the contributions of its founders, and its seminal research and scholarship. At the university, the tour includes the Department of Human Development and Family Life, now the Department of Applied Behavioral Science, faculty offices, research and training sites and centers (e.g., Center for Community Health and Development, Child Development Center), and the Center for the History of Behavior Analysis. In Lawrence, it includes sites for additional research and training (e.g., Achievement Place, Century School, Sunflower House), community collaborations (e.g., Community Living Opportunities, Douglas County Courthouse), journal publication and management (e.g., Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, Allen Press), as well as faculty and staff houses and Pioneer Cemetery. It ends at a watering hole, but is not finished. The tour expands on each iteration.