Arnold Gesell: a biography of this psychologist, philosopher and pediatrician.

This researcher influenced studies on childhood development.

Arnold Gesell was an American psychologist, philosopher and pediatrician who studied child development. who studied child development. His work as a teacher and writer between the 1920s and 1950s quickly positioned him as one of the great experts on parenting and child rearing in North America.

However, he has been more recognized because he developed a very important research method for modern psychology: the Gesell chamber. In this article we review Arnold Gesell's biography, as well as some of the repercussions his work has had on child development studies and how he invented the observation chamber that bears his name.

Biography of Arnold Gesell: physician, philosopher and educator.

Arnold Gesell (1880-1961) was born in Wisconsin, USA. He was the eldest of 5 siblings, the children of a photographer and a teacher, both of whom were strongly interested in children's education. With the intention of becoming a teacher as well, Gesell was trained at a very young age with educator Edgar James Swiftwho quickly detected Gesell's interest in child psychology and education.

He later began to specialize in other disciplines. For example, he earned a degree in philosophy in his hometown in 1903, while training in the psychology laboratory at the University of Wisconsin as well as in history and education.

He earned a Doctor of Philosophy degree in 1906 and eventually studied medicine also at the University of Wisconsin in 1906. and eventually studied medicine also at the University of Wisconsin, completing his doctorate in 1915. He soon became an assistant professor at Yale University, where he founded a Child Development Clinic and worked as a school psychologist in Connecticut.

In the latter city, Arnold Gesell began studying the development of children with disabilities, and then came to the conclusion that in order to understand that, it was first necessary to understand how the development of children without disabilities had been. This was what finally led him to develop some principles of child development.

Some contributions of Arnold Gesell

Gesell's influence comes from an idea that quickly became popular and remains in the social imaginary to this day: the widespread belief that there is a kind of "timetable" in child development. That is to say, a series of stages related to age and characterized by typical behaviors..

Even though some previous authors, such as Sigmund Freud, had already proposed theories on child development and its stages, it was Arnold Gesell's contributions that became the point of reference on the subject, at least during his time.

His work revolves around the proposal that the maturation process can be aided or accompanied by a reflectively designed environment.and so it was quickly transferred to education.

During his research, 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 the whole development and evolution of the human species has passed. This means that his theory on child development is strongly influenced by evolutionary theories. is strongly influenced by evolutionary theories that were very popular in the United States and the United States. that were very popular in the United States and Europe at the time.

Likewise, his theory is influenced by the studies that took place at the beginning of the 20th century, when medicine was beginning to consider the objective of knowing children better, besides the fact that at the same time there was a strong debate about the innate-learned binarism.

Gesell believed that much of the personality and behaviors of children are inherited, but that there was no need to rush into diagnosis, especially in the case of those with a disability.

Coincidentally, 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 treating different childhood problems.. Thanks to his previous training as an educator and psychologist, he put emphasis on the bond with the parents of the children he treated, which was also considered as something novel, since this method was a little more similar to education than to medicine.

In addition, he distanced himself from psychometric methods, it distanced itself from the psychometric methods which were very popular at the time and focused on assessing intelligence. Gesell preferred more qualitative methods, for example based on clinical observation of each child and each area.

Gesell's camera

Taking his photographer father as an influence, Gesell used many technological resources in the development of his theories. For example, cameras, video cameras and one-way mirrors are often used to observe in detail how the children are performing.

In fact, this one-way mirror quickly this one-way mirror quickly became an observation chamber.The observation chamber consists of separating two rooms by a one-way mirror. The people in one room are reflected in that mirror, while the people in the next room are not only not reflected, but can see what is going on next door.

The intention of this observation chamber is that the researchers can observe what is going on in the next room, without the other people in the roomThe intention of this observation chamber is that the researchers can observe what is going on in the next room without the other person feeling self-conscious, i.e. it allows them to act in a more spontaneous and natural way. This chamber is still used today as a very important method of investigation and study, and it is known as Gesell's chamber.

Main works

Some of his major works include The Mental Growth of the Preschool Child (1925), and The Child From Five to Ten (The Child From Five to Ten, 1977).

Co-authored with other authors, Gesell develops in both books the idea of the stages that childhood goes through. Likewise, they are considered two of the classic works of developmental psychology.

Bibliographical references:

• Weizmann, F. (2012). Arnold Gesell: The Maturationist. In Pickren, W., Dewsbury, D., & Wertheimer, M. (Eds.). Portraits of Pioneers in Developmental Psychology. Psychology Press: New York.