T. V. Joe Layng PhD

T. V. Joe Layng has 50 years of experience in the experimental and applied analysis of behavior with a particular focus on the design of teaching/learning environments. Joe earned a Ph.D. in Behavioral Science (biopsychology) at the University of Chicago. At Chicago, working with pigeons, he investigated animal models of psychopathology, specifically the recurrence of pathological patterns (head-banging) as a function of normal behavioral processes. While at Chicago he also contributed to the discovery and characterization of the behavioral process known as contingency adduction. Joe also has extensive clinical behavior analysis experience with a focus on ambulatory schizophrenia, especially the systemic as well as topical treatment of delusional speech and hallucinatory behavior. Joe has published over 50 articles or chapters, and a book on Signal Detection Theory for behavior analysts. 

 

In 1971 he founded the Center for Innovative Design and Programed Instruction at Western Illinois University. A few years later Joe established a research/treatment program, the Personal Effectiveness Group, at the Institute of Psychiatry, Northwestern University Medical Center. He went on in 1984 to found Enabling Technologies, a software firm that produced the first use of gamification to teach business software, as well as an array of business products and advanced 3D modeling software. In the 1990s, Joe was Director of Academic Support and then Dean at Malcolm X College in Chicago where her founded the award winning Personalized Curriculum Institute. In 1999, he co-founded Headsprout. At Headsprout, Joe led the scientific team that developed the technology that formed the basis of the company’s patented Early Reading and Reading Comprehension online reading programs, for which he was the chief architect. The reading programs have helped over three million children learn to read and have been awarded the software industries most prestigious acknowledgment, the CODiE Award, for best instructional solution. He is currently a partner in Generategy, LLC, which publishes the patented Music Learning Lab. Joe is a fellow of the Association for Behavior Analysis International, and Chair, Board of Trustees, The Chicago School of Professional Psychology.