Joe Spradlin (1930-2020) Remembering “The Conscience of the Bureau of Child Research”


On May 27, 2020, Joe Spradlin died at home with his wife of 71 years Rita by his side at age 90 in Lawrence, KS.

Joe SpradlinDr. Spradlin was an investigator on the very first research project at the Bureau of Child Research, the forerunner of what is now the Schiefelbusch Institute for Life Span Studies. Spradlin was recruited to the University of Kansas by Bureau of Child Research director Richard Schiefelbusch. Spradlin’s PhD was still pending from George Peabody College (prior to Peabody’s merger with Vanderbilt University) in 1958. He held many research and faculty roles throughout Kansas University and Life Span Institute. He was Professor in the Department of Human Development and Family Life (now Applied Behavioral Science) from 1969 to 1995. He directed the Kansas University Affiliated Facility at Parsons, Kansas from 1978-1989, and the Parsons Research Center from 1986-1994.

Joe’s career spanned the foundational period of applied behavior analysis. Spradlin pioneered research on various features of operant conditioning (schedule-control, extinction, and discrimination) and the use of token reinforcement. He also worked in the area of discrimination learning. Finally, he was among many at the Bureau who championed the notion that communication was behavior and that this behavior could be affected by environmental conditions. “Joe was a central and critical figure in the early development of the Parsons research program and then guided the center into maturity. His love of the study of behavior and his quest for scientific integrity are the qualities that made Joe a consummate professional.” David Lindeman, director of KU Life Span Institute at Parson.

He began his career at a time when most children with intellectual and developmental disabilities were institutionalized; conditions were very grim for people in institutions. As Spradlin wrote in Doing Science and Doing Good, “The environment was so harsh it might have been constructed to punish the children for being what they were.” Bruce Wetherby, one of Joe’s students and a family friend recalled, “Joe Spradlin’s focus for his entire career was always on helping people. Joe always had his feet on the ground when he approached research.” For these reasons, Spradlin eventually came to be known as the “Conscience of the Bureau of Child Research.”

Joe SpradlinJoe mentored many students at KU and Parsons that have gone on to become leaders in research across the country. Former Life Span Institute director Steve Warren said it was Spradlin who helped him to secure funding while completing his PhD at KU. Warren recalled Spradlin as “a warm, thoughtful, and generous man with a subtle wit. He made major contributions to the early science of intellectual and developmental disabilities and was one of the pioneers who built the foundation of what we now know as the Schiefelbusch Life Span Institute.” Joe was a primary mentor for Life Span Institute Senior Scientist, Nancy Brady while working on a PhD in the HDFL program and at Parsons Research Center, “He was my mentor, colleague and friend. Joe made sure I knew the theoretical underpinnings of the applied work I wanted to do. Parsons was a wonderful research environment because we all had a chance to work and learn together and Joe was the head cheerleader.”

His honors and recognitions include being named a Fellow of the American Psychological Association (APA) and the American Psychological Society, the Shriver Center Prize for Research and Service to People with Mental Retardation, APA's Division 25 Don Hake Award, and the Academy on Mental Retardation Career Scientist Award.

Through all his many accomplishments over his long career, he has touched many lives at the University of Kansas, and Life Span Institute and improved the well-being of individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. An avid bicyclist, he rode annually in the Kansas MS150 (a 150-mile ride held across Kansas to raise money to support research on multiple sclerosis) well into his 80s. Judy Carta of Juniper Gardens Children’s Project fondly characterized him as, “One of the tall trees in our Life Span Institute forest. Such a sincere, engaged and wonderful man and scholar. One of our treasures. What a legacy he leaves us.”

LJWorld - For Lawrence hospice patient, goodbyes are separated by phone screens and sliding doors