Arnold Gesell: a biography of this psychologist, philosopher and pediatrician
Arnold Gesell was an American psychologist, philosopher and pediatrician who studied child development. His performance as a teacher and writer between the years 1920 and 1950, quickly positioned him as one of the great experts in parenting and child rearing in North America.
However, it has been more recognized because it developed a very important research method for modern psychology: Gesell's camera. In this article we review the biography of Arnold Gesell, as well as some of the repercussions that his work has had on the studies on the development of children and how he invented the observation chamber that bears his name.
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Biography of Arnold Gesell: doctor, philosopher and educator
Arnold Gesell (1880-1961) was born in Wisconsin, United States. He was the oldest of 5 children, children of a photographer and a teacher, both strongly interested in early childhood education. With the intention of also becoming a teacher, Gesell he was formed from a very young age with the educator Edgar James Swift , who quickly detected Gesell's interest in child psychology and education.
Later he began to specialize in other disciplines. For example, he obtained the degree of philosophy in his hometown in 1903, while he was trained in the psychology laboratory at the University of Wisconsin as well as in history and education.
He obtained the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in 1906 and finally he also studied medicine at the University of Wisconsin, completing his doctorate in 1915. He soon served as an assistant professor at Yale University, where he founded a Child Development Clinic and worked as a school psychologist in Connecticut.
In this last city, Arnold Gesell began studying how was the development of children with disabilities, and then came to the conclusion that to understand that, it was first necessary to understand how it had been the development of children without disabilities. This was what finally led him to develop some principles of child development.
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Some contributions from Arnold Gesell
The influence of Gesell comes from an idea that quickly became popular and that remains in the social imaginary to this day: the widespread belief that there is a kind of "schedule" in child development. That is to say, a series of stages related to age and characterized by typical behaviors .
Although some previous authors, such as Sigmund Freud had already proposed theories about child development and its stages, it was Arnold Gesell's contributions that were positioned as a point of reference in the subject, at least during his time.
His work revolves around the proposal that the maturation process can be helped or accompanied by a thoughtfully designed environment , so he moved quickly to education.
During his investigations, Gesell focused on different moments of child development, as well as on different characteristics. Some of the most important areas were motor development, adaptive behavior and psychosocial behavior.
Theoretical influences
Gesell believed that these stages through which childhood passes, reproduce the stages through which has passed all the development and evolution of the human species. That means that his theory about child development is strongly influenced by evolutionary theories which were very popular in the United States and Europe at that time.
Likewise, his theory is influenced by the studies that took place in the early twentieth century where medicine began to raise the goal of knowing children better, in addition to that at the same time there was a strong debate about binarism innate-learned
Gesell believed that much of the personality and behavior of children are inherited, but that there was no need to rush to make a diagnosis, especially in the case of those with a disability.
It coincided that at this time Gesell came to study medicine at Yale University, where he was assigned a room in a pediatric clinic. He was in charge of dealing with different childhood problems . Thanks to his previous training as an educator and psychologist, he emphasized the bond with the parents of the children he treated, which was also considered something new, since this method was a little more like education than medicine.
Further, took distance from the psychometric methods that at that time they were very popular and focused on evaluating intelligence. Gesell preferred more qualitative methods, for example based on the clinical observation of each child and each area.
The Gesell camera
Taking as an influence his photographer father, Gesell used many technological resources in the development of his theories.For example, frequently used cameras and video as unidirectional mirrors to see in detail how children develop.
In fact, this unidirectional mirror quickly became an observation chamber , which consists of separating two rooms by a unidirectional vision mirror. The people of a room are reflected in that mirror, while the people who are in the room continue, not only do they not reflect, but they can see what is happening next.
The intention of this observation camera is that researchers can observe what happens in the next room , without the other people feeling self-conscious, that is, allowing them to act more spontaneously and naturally. This camera is still used as a very important research and study method, and is known as the Gesell camera.
Main works
Some of his main works are works The Mental Growth of the Preschool Child ("The mental development of the preschool child") of 1925, and The Child From Five to Ten (The child from 5 to 10 years old), from 1977.
In co-authorship with other authors, Gesell develops in both books the idea of the stages through which childhood passes . Likewise, they are considered two of the classic works of developmental psychology.
Bibliographic references:
- Weizmann, F. (2012). Arnold Gesell: The Maturationist. In Pickren, W., Dewsbury, D. and Wertheimer, M. (Eds.). Portraits of Pioneers in Developmental Psychology. Psychology Press: New York.
