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Jack was born on March 25, 1934, in the Brooklyn, NY to parents, Anna and Morris Katz. He was raised in Brooklyn with his older brother, Seymour (Sy) whom he was very close with until his passing in March 2023. Jack was raised with lots of family around which helped form the value of a close-knit family. His Uncle Aaron (Morris’ twin brother), Aunt Sonia and cousins, Jack and Larry, would gather weekly to spend time together. He was also very close to his cousin, George. Jack always struggled in school with auditory processing and visual processing problems and was told by a teacher in high school that he would never amount to anything. Jack considered dropping out of high school, but Mr. Cohen, a friend of Morris’ inspired him to graduate and go to college. In his senior year of high school, one of Jack’s teachers, Miss Carlin, gave the class a questionnaire to suggest the students’ future vocations. Jack’s came back as “speech correction.” Jack did not know what “speech correction” was, but the suggestion was a good one, as he graduated from Brooklyn College in 1956 with a degree in Speech Pathology. He went on to receive a Master’s Degree in Speech Pathology from Syracuse University. Jack began his doctorate in Speech Pathology, but he switched to Audiology to work with Dr. Aubrey Epstein, largely because Dr. Epstein was more receptive to Jack’s early research into the connections between phonemes and reading—what was to become phonemic synthesis.

During the summer of 1955, Jack met the love of his life, Irma Laufer when they were both camp counselors, and they were married on June 24, 1956. While Jack was getting his PhD in Pittsburgh, PA, their son Mark was born on 1960. During late night feedings Jack came up with the spondees for the SSW Test. Jack received his degree in 1961. He went on to Dekalb, IL to teach at Northern Illinois University. In 1962 Jack and family moved to New Orleans so Jack could teach at Tulane University. Miriam was born in 1963. The family moved to Kansas City in 1965, where Jack founded the speech and hearing clinic at Menorah Medical Center and taught at KU as adjunct professor. In 1972, Jack published the first edition of the Handbook of Clinical Audiology, handily assisted by Irma, who prepared the author and word indexes for the first four editions and proof -read many chapters in all of the books. In 1973, Jack was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to teach in Turkey for a year, and then the family returned to Kansas City. The family moved to Buffalo, New York in 1974, where Jack took a full professor position in the University of Buffalo’s Communicative Disorders and Sciences Department, where the Buffalo Model was born. Jack went on to become department chair.

Jack and Irma stayed in Buffalo for 28 years, until Jack retired in 2002. They moved back to Kansas City to be closer to Miriam and Mark and their families. Jack redefined the idea of retirement by opening his private practice devoted to auditory processing disorders, where he continues to offer services to patients. In retirement, he has edited the sixth and seventh editions of the Handbook of Clinical Audiology, two editions of Therapy for Auditory Processing Disorders, and contributed to numerous articles, research projects, and lectures. And, of course, he helped found IGAPS.

In addition to Mark and Miriam, Jack and Irma are the proud in-laws of Jill and Eric, grandparents of Erin, Hanna, Rachel, and Elaina, two in-law grandsons, Tom and Alex, and great-grandparents of Evie and Theo.