Geselle Case

There are many different views on development and how it works. Theorist have provided different thoughts to explain what happens when a child is growing up and developing. One of these theorist is Gesell. Focusing mainly on the concept of maturation. Gesell says that growth or development is influenced by two major factors: the child is a product of their environment, and the child gets their personality from within or by the action of the genes. There are several different ways one could link this theorist and his ideas with this specific vignette.

Gesell believed that the development of a child always unfolded in a fixed sequence. You can see that pattern in the vignette about Rhonda. She goes through different stages of wetting the bed, acting out in school, and then stabilizing a relationship with her brother and becoming a woman. Although this sequence is a little odd and not the typical scenario for most, it still follows a sequence. This fixed sequence is seen in Rhonda’s thoughts. You can tell that she is going through maturation. While she had a some what rough childhood, when she reaches high school she becomes her own person and her outlook is definitely matured.

Another concept that Gesell believed to be true was the fact that children would vary in their rates of development. Rhonda and her step brother are pretty good examples of this certain concept. One can obviously tell that the step brother was raised a little different, was loved a little more (love was shown a lot more towards him), and he developed a little faster than his step sister. Because Rhonda was not raised with as much love and shown affection one can tell that her rate of development was a little different.

Another Gesell concept is that he believed that maturation governs with growth of the entire personality. As mentioned before as Rhonda was growing up as a tomboy, but as her personality was growing so was her maturation level. Which caused her to develop