Arnold Gesell

Arnold Gesell
Born (1880-06-21)June 21, 1880
Alma, Wisconsin
Died May 29, 1961(1961-05-29) (aged 80)
New Haven, Connecticut
Fields Psychology
Alma mater University of Wisconsin—Madison
Yale University
Known for Studies in child development

Arnold Lucius Gesell (21 June 1880 – 29 May 1961) was an American psychologist and pediatrician and professor at Yale University, known for his research and contributions in the field of child development.[1]

Early life

Gesell was born in Alma, Wisconsin, and later wrote a book analyzing his experiences there, The Village of a Thousand Souls. He was the eldest of five children and the son of photographer Gerhard Gesell and schoolteacher Christine Giesen.[2] His first experience in observing child development involved watching his younger siblings learn and grow. He graduated from high school in 1896.

Gesell attended Stevens Point Normal School, where a course taught by Edgar James Swift led Gesell to take an interest in psychology. He worked as a high school teacher briefly, before leaving to study at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Gesell studied history under Frederick Jackson Turner and psychology under Joseph Jastrow, and he received a bachelor of philosophy degree from Wisconsin in 1903.

Career

Gesell served as a teacher and high school principal before continuing his education at Clark University, where the university's president, G. Stanley Hall, had founded a child study movement.[3] He received his PhD from Clark in 1906.

Gessell worked at several educational facilities in New York City and Wisconsin before obtaining a professorship at the Los Angeles State Normal School. There he met fellow teacher Beatrice Chandler, whom he married. They later had a daughter and a son, Federal District Judge Gerhard Gesell.

Gesell spent time at schools for the mentally disabled, including the Vineland Training School in New Jersey. Having developed an interest in the causes and treatment of childhood disabilities, Gesell began studying at the University of Wisconsin Medical School to better understand physiology.[4] He later served as an assistant professor at Yale University while continuing to study medicine.[5] He developed the Clinic of Child Development there and received his M.D. in 1915. He was later given a full professorship at Yale.

Gesell also served as the school psychologist for the Connecticut State Board of Education and helped to develop classes to help children with disabilities succeed. He wrote several books, including The Preschool Child from the Standpoint of Public Hygiene and Education in 1923, The Mental Growth of the Preschool Child in 1925 (which was also published as a film), and An Atlas of Infant Behavior (chronicling typical milestones for certain ages) in 1934. He coauthored with Frances Ilg two childrearing guides, Infant and Child in the Culture of Today in 1943, and The Child from Five to Ten in 1946.

Gesell made use of the latest technology in his research. He used the newest in video and photography advancements. He also made use of one-way mirrors when observing children, even inventing the Gesell dome, a one-way mirror shaped as a dome, under which children could be observed without being disturbed. In his research he studied many children, including Kamala, the wolf girl. He also did research on young animals, including monkeys.

As a psychologist, Gesell wrote and spoke about the importance of both nature and nurture in child development. He cautioned others not to be quick to attribute mental disabilities to specific causes. He believed that many aspects of human behavior, such as handedness and temperament were heritable. He explained that children adapted to their parents as well as to one another. He advocated for a nationwide nursery school system in the United States.

Maturational Theory and Developmental Schedules

Gesell's ideas came to be known as Gesell’s Maturational Theory of child development.[5][6] Based on his theory, he published a series of summaries of child development sequences, called the Gesell Developmental Schedules.

The Gesell Institute of Human Development, named after him, was started by his colleagues from the Clinic of Child Development, Frances Ilg and Louise Bates Ames in 1950, after Gesell retired from the university in 1948.[7] In 2012, the institute was renamed the Gesell Institute of Child Development.

Personal

Gessell married Beatrice Chandler, a teacher at Los Angeles State Normal School. The couple had a daughter and a son.[8] He died at his home in New Haven in 1961.[7]

Selected publications

References

Notes

  1. ↑ Herman, E (2001), "Families made by science. Arnold Gesell and the technologies of modern child adoption.", Isis; an international review devoted to the history of science and its cultural influences (published Dec 2001), 92 (4), pp. 684–715, doi:10.1086/385355, JSTOR 3080338, PMID 11921680
  2. ↑ Hannan, Caryn (2008). Wisconsin biographical dictionary (2008-2009 ed.). Hamburg, MI: State History Publications. p. 156. ISBN 9781878592637.
  3. ↑ William Kessen (July 1983). History, theory, and methods. Wiley. pp. 72–73. ISBN 978-0-471-09057-1.
  4. ↑ William C. Crain (March 1980). Theories of development: concepts and applications. Prentice-Hall. p. 21. ISBN 978-0-13-913566-8.
  5. 1 2 Neil J Salkind (22 January 2004). An Introduction to Theories of Human Development. SAGE Publications. pp. 59–. ISBN 978-0-7619-2639-9.
  6. ↑ Encyclopedia of Human Ecology: A-H. ABC-CLIO. pp. 338–. ISBN 978-1-57607-852-5.
  7. 1 2 "Child Specialist Dies". The Kansas City Times. May 30, 1961. p. 28. Retrieved November 19, 2015 – via Newspapers.com.
  8. ↑ Rebecca Staples New; Moncrieff Cochran (1 December 2006). Early Childhood Education [Four Volumes]. Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 388–. ISBN 978-0-313-01448-2.

General references

External links

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