Salk, Lee

(b. 27 December 1926 in New York City;d. 2 May 1992 in New York City), child psychologist, educator, author, and social commentator.

Salk was the youngest of three sons born to David Bonn Salk, a designer in the women’s-wear industry in Manhattan, and Dora Press, a homemaker. As Lee later wrote, the strong personality of his immigrant mother was pivotal in stimulating the desire for career success and public service in him and his brothers. Jonas, the eldest, was famous for his discovery of the polio vaccine, and Herman became a veterinarian and advocate of international wildlife conservation.

Salk grew up and attended schools in the borough of the Bronx in New York City. After attending Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, in 1944 and the University of Louisville in Kentucky, in 1946, Salk did the rest of his university training at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. There, he received the A.B. degree in 1949, an M.A. in 1950, and a Ph.D. in 1954. From 1954 to 1957 he was a research associate in the Department of Psychiatry of the Allen Memorial Institute of Psychiatry at McGill University in Montreal. He held a multitude of professional posts in New York from 1957 onward. He was a visiting lecturer in human relations at the University Settlement House in New York City; an instructor of scientific methods in resident-training programs of the Department of Psychiatry at City Hospital in Elmhurst, Queens; the chief psychologist for pediatric psychiatry services at Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan; and a professor of psychology in psychiatry and pediatrics at Cornell University Medical College. In addition he served as a consultant to organizations including the American Red Cross, NBC, Girl Scouts of the U.S.A., and the American Foundation for Maternal and Child Health. During the final two years of

his life he served as the first director of prevention services for KidsPeace, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to helping children in crisis, located in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. At the time of his death, Salk was a clinical professor of psychology and psychiatry at the Cornell University Medical Center in New York City, where he resided. He was also an adjunct professor of child development in the Child Study Center of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island.

Salk’s advocacy of children and families was displayed in his research and in his writing. He won national attention in 1960 for his groundbreaking research on infants’ reactions to their mothers’ heartbeats. Stimulated by his observations (at the Central Park Zoo in New York City) that Rhesus monkeys tend to hold their newborns close to their heart, against their left breast, Salk noted that human mothers had the same tendency. This tendency was the same for right- and left-handed mothers. He conducted an experiment in a New York City hospital where for four days the sound of a normal heartbeat was played for 102 newborn infants. Comparing these infants to another group of newborns who had not been exposed to the heartbeat

sound, he found that the babies who had heard the continuous heartbeat cried less and put on substantially more weight than the other group over the four-day period. Salk concluded that the heartbeat is learned in the womb through imprinting. When imprinting occurs, the organism is relatively free from anxiety, and when the organism is subsequently in the presence of the imprinted stimulus it is again relatively free from anxiety. Hence the babies who heard the heartbeat cried less and ate more. Much of Salk’s other research focused on the effects of childhood experiences on later behavior.

In addition to his research, Salk was best known as the author of parenting books and for his use of television and print media to promote a common sense approach to child rearing. His first book, How to Raise a Human Being, was published in 1969. In this and the nine books that followed, advocacy of family values is a continuing theme. For twenty years he also wrote a monthly family-oriented column for McCallapos;s magazine titled “You and Your Family.”

Salk was a fellow of the American Psychological Association and one of the founders of its Division of Child, Youth, and Family Services, for which he served as president from 1979 to 1980. Among the many awards he received during his career were the first Distinguished Contribution Award from the Society of Pediatric Psychology and the American Psychological Association’s Distinguished Contribution Award in Clinical Child Psychology. In 1981 he was the recipient of the special National Media Award from the American Psychological Foundation. A tribute to his legacy is the Lee Salk Center, the research-and-development arm of Kids Peace.

In 1990 Salk was diagnosed with esophageal cancer, requiring extensive surgery. With the help of his family he lived happily and productively for two years. During this time he finished his final book, Familyhood: Nurturing the Values that Matter Most (1992) and launched a program in child abuse for Kids Peace. Salk had a heart attack while undergoing cancer treatment; he died in New York City.

Salk’s world was one of child advocacy, and his proudest accomplishment was that of his role as a parent. His daughter, Pia, followed his lead as a psychologist; his son, Eric, became a physician. Familyhood was the embodiment of Salk’s life as a father and family member. The introduction to Familyhood is a poignant tribute to his wife, Mary Jane Salk, his children (who were from a previous marriage), and his brothers, as they mediated the devastating effects of his illness. The strength of his personal character was displayed in the dedication of the book to his wife, “whose strength, determination, and love turned a ghastly nightmare into a beautiful sunrise.”

periences and therefore contain much autobiographical material. In addition to those mentioned in the text, see especially What Every Child Would Like Parents to Know (1978) and My Father, My Son: Intimate Relationships (1982). His pioneering research on the heartbeat is referenced in “The Role of the Heartbeat in the Relations Between Mother and Infant,” Scientific American (May 1973). Obituaries are in the New York ’mes (4 May 1992) and Washington Post (5 May 1992).

Richard E. Ripple