Arnold Gesell Developmental Milestones

Arnold Gesell developed some of the first milestones that children should meet. These milestones are called the Gesell Developmental Schedules. The schedule is supposed to be able to give the level of possible intelligence. Children who show early development were likely to have high intelligence according to the schedule. The schedule has fallen out of favor in regards to studying intelligence over the years. There is not enough proof to show that the schedules accurately measure intelligence potential. Gesell observation of children describe developmental milestones in ten major areas motor characteristics, personal hygiene, emotional expression, fears and dreams, self and sex, interpersonal relations, play and pastimes, school life, ethical sense, and philosophic outlook . The scale is used to this day to measure an infant’s intellectual development in which the infant may have developmental
Gesell Maturational Theory is an idea that children grow according to their biology, according to this theory, children or teenagers will only develop according to how they have programmed their genetics. The Gesell Maturational Theory implies that all environmental factors such as experiences or injuries play only a small role, if any, in child development. Gesell used criteria for early screening for cognitive growth, hand eye coordination, number familiarity, short term memory, visual and spatial perception and pre-mathematical skills are observed. For language screening, ability to understand speech, sentence structure, semantics, ability to verbally express one and ones vocabulary. Motor characteristics screening involves; fine motor skills, coordination balance and general motor skills and lastly social screening involves interaction with other children and adults, self regulation and self