ARNOLD GESELL: BIOGRAPHY AND THEORY OF DEVELOPMENT - PSYCHOLOGY - 2024

Arnold Gesell was an American psychologist and pediatrician born on June 21, 1880 and died on May 29, 1961. He was known for being one of the pioneers in the use of video cameras to study the typical development of babies and children, in addition of being one of the most important developmental psychologists.

After completing his doctorate under the tutelage of G. Stanley Hall, one of the first scholars of habitual development in children, Gesell decided to study this subject as well, convinced that this would help him better understand developmental disorders in the childhood.

Gesell went down in history mainly thanks to his theory of development in children, which is known as Gesell's Maturative Theory.

Based on this theory, this researcher published a series of metrics and guides on the different stages that children go through in their maturation process.

Biography

Arnold Gesell was born in Alma, Wisconsin, in 1880. As the oldest of five siblings, he was the son of photographer Gerhard Gesell and professor Christine Giesen.

From a young age he was interested in the development of people, observing the maturation of his little brothers until his graduation from high school in 1896.

After graduation, Gesell went to the University of Wisconsin at Steven's Point, although the experiences he had lived in his childhood marked him.

Later in his life he wrote a book about his hometown, titled The village of a thousand souls ("The town of a thousand souls").

In Gesell University he attended a class taught by Edgar Swift, who instilled in him a passion for psychology. His studies were somewhat bumpy, but he eventually studied History and Psychology, receiving his BA in Psychology from the University of Wisconsin in 1903.

Race

At first Gesell wanted to dedicate himself to teaching, going to work in a high school for a time before getting his university degree.

However, he later joined Clark University, where Professor G. Stanley Hall had begun to study the development of children. After some time studying under his tutelage, Gesell obtained his doctorate in 1906.

After this, this psychologist began to work in some educational centers both in his native Wisconsin and in New York.

Later he obtained the position of professor in the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA); There he met a teacher named Beatrice Chandler, whom he later married and had two children.

Having developed a deep interest in developmental disorders in childhood, Gesell also spent time in different schools for struggling children, as well as studying medicine at the University of Wisconsin in the belief that this would help his career.

During this time he worked as an assistant professor at Yale, where he later became a full professor.

Research on child development

During all this time Gesell also dedicated himself to researching more about childhood development. First adopting the use of video cameras to document children's behavior, he pioneered the use of many techniques that later became common in this branch of psychology.

Due to her fame within the development field, she had the privilege of studying Kamala, a "wild child" who had been raised by a pack of wolves.

This research, along with those he conducted of normal children and even animals such as baby monkeys, helped him develop his theories.

Development theory

His ideas about the normal development of children were embodied in his Maturative Theory of Child Development, first introduced in 1925.

His intention was to create a model of the way and the speed in which children mature, as well as a list of the stages they go through in the process.

The main contribution of Gesell's theory is the idea that all children go through the same phases in their development process.

After more than 50 years of research and observation at his Child Development Clinic at Yale, his theory has greatly influenced the field of developmental psychology, as well as that of education.

Basis of the theory

Gesell believed that a child's development is influenced by both his environment and his genes, but he devoted himself primarily to research on this second factor. She called maturation the process by which an individual's genetics influence their development as a person.

For Gesell, the main factor in a person's maturation process is the speed at which their nervous system develops: the more complex it becomes, the more their mind develops, and the more their behaviors change.

This researcher realized that all children learn new behaviors in a predictable sequence common to all of them. For example, a newborn baby first learns to control her mouth, then her eyes, and later her neck, shoulders, and limbs.

Later, throughout childhood, it is also possible to find patterns in the development of new skills and behaviors.

For example, children learn to sit upright earlier than to walk, and this earlier than to run. For Gesell, this has to do with the maturation of the nervous system described above.

Therefore, the role of the environment and education is to adapt to the maturation process of the child to promote the learning that would occur naturally as his nervous system develops.

Behavior patterns

Interested both in the normal development of children and its alterations, Gesell dedicated himself to studying the habitual patterns within the maturation of individuals.

For this he developed a list of normal behaviors that children go through in their development if there is no problem.

These scales included behaviors such as "the child is able to stand up unaided" or "the child has said his first word."

Because they include the typical age at which each of these behaviors occurs, these scales also serve to study pathologies within child development. Today, they are still used in the field of developmental psychology.

References

1. "Arnold Gesell" in: Britannica. Retrieved on: April 7, 2018 from Britannica: britannica.com.
2. "Arnold Gesell: Biography & Theory of Child Development" in: Study. Retrieved on: April 7, 2018 from Study: study.com.
3. "Arnold Gesell" in: Wikipedia. Retrieved on: April 7, 2018 from Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org.
4. "Arnold Lucius Gesell Facts" in: Your Dictionary. Retrieved on: April 7, 2018 from Your Dictionary: biography.yourdictionary.com.
5. "Gesell's Maturational Theory" in: Wikipedia. Retrieved on: April 7, 2018 from Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org.