The Psychology of Early Growth

This is a most important volume resulting from an intensive psychiatric study made at the Yale Clinic of Child Development. The embryologist and anthropologist have long been making scientific studies of physical growth from birth to maturity. Medicine has long needed scientific studies correlating physical growth with behavior growth. In this volume, as well as in a number of other works produced from the same clinic by Doctor Gesell and his associates, we now have scientific measuring-rods that can be applied toward a better understanding of physical and mental growth and its deviations. If some of the pediatricians, child psychiatrists, and child. psychologists complain that the results of these studies are too technical for practical application by the average physician or psychologist, the writer might agree, but until thoroughly scientific studies have been made of the early years of growth and development we cannot expect to have practical, clinical yardsticks, and one must constantly remember that unless this work had been done with scientific accuracy we could have no hope of developing adequate criteria for sound clinical application. All of the volumes published by Doctor Gesell show every evidence of starting with measurements of the earliest developments of life, emphasizing, especially, the growth taking place during the first six years of life. This has been a monumental undertaking in which many able people with adequate scientific training have participated, and the influence of this work will be felt for many years. The authors of the present volume do not claim too much, stating frankly, "The processes of behavior growth are so subtle and intricate that they resist precise measurement. Yet they are so orderly and patterned that they constantly tempt us toward quantitative formulation. This formulation must be kept within bounds and must not yield too much to the theoretical and methodological allurements of the absolute! Our problem is genetic." They also state: "Although the biometric study of infancy is only in its beginning, the lawful nature of the phenomena insures endless scientific progress in the understanding and control of early human growth." This book gives in detail the results of a thorough investigation with respect to both body and behavior growth, but it does much more than this: it describes the racial, social, and economic backgrounds of the infants studied; it presents adequate data from control groups; it elucidates the methodology used; it contains an excellent glossary so that …