he child’s growth or development, Gesell said, is influenced by two

major forces. First, the child is a product of his or her environment. But
more fundamentally, Gesell believed, the child’s development is directed
from within, by the action of the genes. Gesell called this process
maturation (Gesell & Ilg, 1943, p. 41).
An outstanding feature of maturational development is that it always
unfolds in fixed sequences. This can first be seen in the developing
embryo, where, for example, the heart is always the first organ to
develop and function. Soon afterward, the rapidly differentiating cells
begin to form the central nervous system—the brain and the spinal cord.
The development of the brain and the head, in turn, begins before the
other parts, such as the arms and the legs. This order, which is directed
by the genetic blueprint, is never violated.
Similarly, sequential development continues after birth. For example,
just as the head develops early in the embryo, it also takes the lead in
early postnatal development. Babies first have control over their lips and
tongues, then gain control over their eye movements, followed by
control over the neck, shoulders, arms, hands, fingers, trunk, legs, and
feet. In both prenatal and postnatal development there is a head-to-foot
(cephalocaudal) trend (Gesell, 1946, p. 339).
As babies grow, they learn to sit up, to stand, to walk, and to run, and
these capacities, too, develop in a specific order. They emerge with the
growth of the nervous system, which itself is directed by the genes.
Children, of course, vary in their rates of development. They do not all
stand up and walk at the same age. Nevertheless, they all proceed
through the same sequences. Moreover, individual differences in growth
rates, in Gesell’s view, are largely controlled by the internal genetic
mechanism (Gesell, 1945, p. 161).
As indicated, the effects of maturation are contrasted with those of the
environment. In prenatal development, this means that maturation is
distinguished from aspects of the internal environment, such as the
embryo’s temperature and the oxygen it receives from its mother. These
environmental factors are certainly vital—they support proper growth—
but they play no direct role in the sequential unfolding of structures and
action patterns. This is the work of the maturational mechanism.
Once the baby is born, she enters a different kind of environment. It is
not only an environment that meets the child’s physical needs but also a
social and cultural environment that tries to induce the child to behave in
the proper ways. Gesell said that the child clearly needs the social
environment to realize his or her potentials, but he also argued that
socializing forces work best when they are in tune with inner
maturational principles (Gesell & Ilg, 1943, p. 41).
Gesell was particularly opposed to efforts to teach children things ahead
of schedule. Children will sit up, walk, and talk when they are ready,
when their nervous systems have sufficiently matured. At the right
moment, they will simply begin to master a task, from their own inner
urges. Until then, teaching will be of little value, and may create tensions
between caretakers and children.
Some evidence for the maturational position on teaching has come from
studies with identical twins. For example, Gesell and Thompson (1929)
gave one twin practice at such activities as stair-climbing and the
grasping and manipulation of cubes. This twin did show some skill
superior to that of the other, but the untrained twin soon caught up, with
much less practice. And he did so at about the age at which we would
expect him to perform the various tasks. Apparently, then, there is an
inner timetable that determines the readiness to do things, and the
benefits of early training are relatively temporary. The question of early
stimulation is controversial, but it does seem that our efforts to speed up
early motor development produce only small effects (DeHart, Sroufe, &
Cooper, 2004, p. 145; Zelazo, Zelazo, & Kolb, 1972).
Maturation, then, refers to the process by which development is
governed by intrinsic factors—principally the genes, which are chemical
substances contained within the nucleus of each cell (see Figure 2.1).
The genes determine the sequence, timing, and form of emerging action-
patterns.
However, the mechanisms by which the genes work are complex.
Even today, not everything is completely understood. We know that the
genes do not work in isolation from one another, and they respond to
outside signals. Some signals come from other parts of the nucleus and
from the cell’s cytoplasm (see Figure 2.1). Other signals come from
outside the cell (Campbell & Reece, 2005, pp. 362, 420). So even when
describing the action of the gene, we must consider its external
environment. Nevertheless, we can still think of maturation as the
process by which the genes direct development, albeit in conjunction
with environmental factors.

FIGURE 2.1
A group of cells. The nucleus contains chromosomes, which contain genes.
So far, I have primarily been illustrating maturational growth with early
motor behavior, which was Gesell’s main scientific focus. However,
Gesell believed that maturation governs the growth of the entire
personality. He said, for example,
[The child’s] nervous system matures by stages and natural sequences.
He sits before he stands; he babbles before he talks; he fabricates before
he tells the truth; he draws a circle before he draws a square; he is selfish
before he is altruistic; he is dependent on others before he achieves
dependence on self. All his capacities, including his morals, are subject
to the laws of growth. (Gesell & Ilg, 1943, p. 11)
The Study of Patterns
Gesell said that when we study growth we should not just measure
things in quantitative form but should examine patterns. Apattern may be
anything that has a definite shape or form—for example, an eyeblink.
But what is most important is the patterning process, the process by
which actions become organized (Gesell & Ilg, 1943, pp. 16–17).
We find good illustrations of the patterning process in the case of babies’
vision. At birth, babies’ eyes are apt to rove around aimlessly, but after a
few days or even hours babies are able to stop their eyes and look at
objects for brief periods. They can stop their eyes and stare “at will”
because a new patterned connection has been made between the nerve
impulses in the brain and the tiny muscles that move the eyes (pp. 17–
18).
By the age of 1 month, babies can usually regard a ring that is dangled
before them and then follow it through an arc of about 90°. This ability
implies a new organization—that between the eye muscles and the
grosser muscles that rotate the head (p. 19).
Patterning continues to widen when babies organize their eye
movements with their hand movements, when they look at what they
hold. By 4 months, babies can usually look at a rattle that they have been
holding. “This is a significant growth gain. It means that eyes and hands
are doing team work, coming into more effective coordination. Mental
growth cannot be measured in inches and pounds. So it is appraised by
patterns” (p. 19).
Still, hand-eye coordination is by no means complete at 4 months. For
some time, the eyes will be in the lead. At 4 months, for example, babies
can often “pick up” a 1-inch cube or even a small candy pellet with their
eyes; that is, they can focus intently on the cube or pellet and consider it
from slightly different angles. But they cannot yet grasp it with their
hands. Babies may be seen looking at the cube and then looking at their
hands, as if they have an idea of grasping the cube, but they simply
cannot do it. The nervous system has not yet sufficiently grown. It is not
until 6 months that babies are usually able to pick up the cube with a
crude palmar grasp, and not until 10 months that they can pick up the
cube or a pellet with a pincer grasp, with opposing thumb and index
finger (see Figure 2.2). Hand-eye coordination develops slowly—it
becomes gradually more organized and comes to include more
differentiated or refined movements.