I first heard of Norm Peterson in 1996. Well, I knew about the character of Norm Peterson on Cheers before then and may have heard about other Norm Petersons, but I didn’t hear about the Norm Peterson until 1996. I was in my first year of graduate school at West Virginia University and participating in Phil Chase’s research lab focused on verbal behavior. We were going to be reading B.F. Skinner’s book, Verbal Behavior, and Phil recommended that we first complete a sort of workbook or primer titled An Introduction to Verbal Behavior by someone named Norm Peterson. It had been out of print for a while, so Phil made a copy available in the department office for us to photocopy if we wanted. I made a copy and diligently worked through the chapters. I still have that copy.
It turns out that Norm was one of the first graduates of Western Michigan University’s doctoral program in Behavior Analysis, working under Jack Michael. His dissertation focused on the basic elements of Skinner’s analysis of verbal behavior, and culminated in the 1978 publication of his book, An Introduction to Verbal Behavior. It was an experiment in programmed instruction, which—in the days before the widespread availability of computers—was implemented via “teaching machines” and later programmed books like Norm’s. I was already interested in instructional design and found Norm’s book both fascinating and extremely helpful. As Phil Chase wrote recently on Facebook, “Norm wrote (designed) one of the most effective concept programs (multiple exemplar training) I have ever read.”
About a decade later, in 2006 or 2007, I met Norm in person for the first time. I was working as a faculty member at Western Michigan University myself and was planning to launch an elearning company to host my tutorial on RFT. At some point, I learned that Norm still lived in the area (in Jackson, only about an hour’s drive from Kalamazoo). Remembering how helpful I found his book and knowing it would be really cool in an interactive, digital format, I reached out to him. He was enthusiastic and invited me to visit him in his offices at the Foundation for Behavioral Resources. During that visit, Norm told me that several people over the years had wanted to convert his book to a computer-based format, but ultimately nothing ever came of it. He agreed to let me have a go at it, and we had a verbal agreement (get it?) to let me sell it on my website if I finished it. Over the next couple of years, I believe I saw Norm a couple more times at department colloquia and would give him updates on my progress.
In 2009, after I had left Western Michigan University and was living in San Francisco, I had completed enough of the digital version of Norm’s book (developed with Adobe Flash and custom PHP code to record data to a MySQL database) for us to sign a formal contract to publish it. The contract was signed on May 6, 2009 and his tutorial was officially launched on FoxyLearning on May 28, 2010. Norm was the very first author (other than me) signed to FoxyLearning. Since then, his tutorial has been used by thousands of students in hundreds of courses around the world and completed by thousands of BCBAs for CEUs. It continues to be one of the most popular and important products on FoxyLearning and CEUniverse.
After publishing his tutorial, I saw Norm several more times at the annual conference of the Association for Behavior Analysis International. He would often agree to take a shift standing by our FoxyLearning poster at the conference and even agreed to wear a goofy, ill-fitting FoxyLearning t-shirt while doing so once. I didn’t know Norm well, but whenever I interacted with him, he was always kind, generous, funny, curious, and eager to help. In fact, for the first decade or so after we published his tutorial, he would often take time to personally respond to many of the questions learners would post on the pages of the tutorial. He wasn’t paid to do this; he simply cared about helping others learn.
I believe the last time I saw Norm in person was in April 2016 when I returned to Western Michigan University to deliver a colloquium. Some of the faculty took me out to lunch at Bell’s Brewery, and I was delighted to see that they had invited Norm and his wife, Val, to join us.
On more than one occasion over the years, Norm mentioned to me that he wanted to develop a tutorial on more advanced topics in verbal behavior. I told him I would be thrilled to publish such a tutorial on FoxyLearning. He may have even done some work on it, but I’m not sure. Sadly, we’ll never see that advanced tutorial.
Norm passed away on December 12, 2024. He will be missed. I am honored that FoxyLearning will play a role in helping his legacy live on. You can continue to access his tutorial for free, use it as an assignment for your course, or complete it for BCBA CEUs.
If you knew Norm—or if you just benefited from his excellent book or tutorial—please take a moment to read his obituary and share a note, memory, or tribute for his family and loved ones to read here or here. And if you happen to be at Cheers or some other place where everybody knows your name, pour one out for the real Norm Peterson.
