Anthony J DeCasper

Anthony James DeCasper, ground-breaking researcher and Professor Emeritus of Developmental Psychology at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro, passed away with family at his side on July 4, 2016, of complications from cancer. He was 75 years old.

Anthony was born at St. Thomas Hospital in Akron, Ohio on August 25, 1940 to Mary (née Rea) and Ignatius C. DeCasper. He was educated at St. Vincent High School and received his Bachelor’s degree from the University of Akron, where he was a member of Lone Star Fraternity and the Air Force ROTC. He served in the US Air Force from 1963-1967, when he was honorably discharged at the rank of Captain. Anthony began graduate work in the field of developmental psychology at the University of Iowa, and received his PhD from Emory University in 1974. He ran the Neonatal Perception Laboratory at the University of Kansas Medical Center from 1975-1976 before joining the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. He lectured and advised graduate students in developmental psychology at UNCG for over 30 years, retiring in 2012. He resided for much of the past decade in France, where he made his home in Paris and more recently in Trouville, close to the ocean that inspired him.

Over the course of his career he made significant contributions to scientific understanding of the development of human perception and learning. In recognition of his impact and influence, his colleagues wrote: “Professor DeCasper has simply, somewhat quietly, and humbly affected the pattern of human developmental research and theory. DeCasper’s ground-breaking experiments opened the door to a revolution in developmental science…and [his work] has continued to affect a variety of research areas, including studies of attention, learning and memory, speech perception and language, ethology and psychobiology of development, neuroscience of brain plasticity, as well as philosophy of mind and anthropological theory on the earliest steps of enculturation.” In retirement he continued to examine the questions that intrigued him, and as his illness progressed regretted the work that remained undone.

To those who knew him Anthony’s character was marked by modesty and reticence, inherited from his parents, and by an earthiness and warmth that balanced the analytical bent of his mind. He was a lover of life and living things, a nurturer and creator whose gifts manifested in the great gardens he tended, the meals he prepared with such attention and love for family and friends, and in the laboratory with the tiny newborns who were the subject of his life’s work. He was attuned to beauty in all its forms, calling a thing pretty – a pure golf swing, bread dough perfectly risen, a clear soprano, a mathematical equation – when it met his particular standards of simplicity and elegance. He endeavored in his own life to add to the beauty of the world.

He is survived by his daughters Anna (John) Lair and Hester (Brian Smith) DeCasper, treasured granddaughters Marie and Dorothea, and Helen Killacky, his former spouse and mother of Anna and Hester. He was the beloved brother of Madeline (John) Vincent, Linda (Harry) Skeen and Mary Beth (Greg) Frohnapfel. He is also survived by his cousins Bill (Therese) Chadbourne, Lisa (Jim) Nicolas, and Michael Chadbourne and their children; nieces and nephews Jackie (Bill) Warner, John (Linda) Vincent, Eric (Michaela) Skeen, Margaret (Jim) Carson, and Elena Taylor and their children, and by his companion Carolyn Granier-Deferre. He was preceded in death by his parents, his aunt Loretta Chadbourne, his sister Madeline Vincent and his nephew Esteban Oyenque. He was a warm friend, respected colleague and mentor to many. He will be sorely missed.

Private family services will be held on July 23, 2016. Online condolences may be expressed and viewed at www.catavolosfuneralhome.com.

The family would like to thank the nurses, staff and volunteers of the Justin T. Rogers Hospice Care Center for their loving care and support of Anthony and his family.

Memorial donations may be made in Anthony’s name to Cleveland Clinic Akron General Hospice of Visiting Nurse Service, Justin T. Rogers Care Center, 3358 Ridgewood Road, Akron, OH 44333 or to the charity of your choice.