CHURCH, Joseph 1918-2003

OBITUARY NOTICE—

See index for CA sketch: Born July 10, 1918, in Gardner, MA; died December 23, 2003, in New York, NY. Psychologist, educator, and author. Church was an influential authority on the early intellectual, emotional, and psychological development of children. After serving in the U.S. Army from 1942 to 1945, he completed his undergraduate work at the New School for Social Research in 1950, and went on to earn a master's degree at Cornell University in 1951 and a doctorate at Clark University in 1954. Church then joined Vassar College as an instructor, becoming a professor there in 1962. He moved to Brooklyn College in 1965 and then to the City University of New York Graduate Center, where he retired in 1985. Church first made a name for himself in the field of child psychology with the release of Childhood and Adolescence: A Psychology of the Growing Person (1957; fifth edition, 1984), which he wrote with colleague L. Joseph Stone. Contrary to popular beliefs at the time, the authors held that cognitive development in children is much more complex than behaviorists then maintained. Church followed this up with another groundbreaking work, Language and the Discovery of Reality (1961). Other works by Church include Three Babies: Biographies of Cognitive Development (1966) and Understanding Your Child from Birth to Three: A Guide to Your Child's Psychological Development (1973).

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Los Angeles Times, January 10, 2004, p. B20.

New York Times, January 8, 2004, p. A31.

Washington Post, January 9, 2004, p. B6.