Arnold Gesell:
Maturation and the Incomplete Man
Test
By Catherine Hotard
Biography
• Born in 1880 and died in 1961 in
Alma, Wisconsin.
• Ph.D. in psychology
• Went to medical school at the
age of 30 to further understand
physiological processes.
• He is the founder of the Yale
Clinic of Child Development.
• In the 50 years of his time at the
Yale Clinic, he and his colleagues
developed behavior norms for
children and tests to assess their
level of behavior.
Biography continued
• Gesell created a series of
developmental tests that
assessed the readiness of
children in school.
• These tests were studied with
colleagues at the Yale Clinic of
Child Development.
• One of these tests was the
“Incomplete Man Test”.
– This test was designed
investigated the maturity,
capacity, and individuality
among children in the 1950s
in order to test school
readiness.
Key Terms in Gesell’s Theory
• Maturation: a process of a child’s development that is
directed by genes in a fixed sequence.
• Readiness: the ability to learn abstractly and to
comprehend the purpose of one’s work before mastering
the learning or the task.
• Individuality: a behavior trait where the child has a sense of
one’s self.
• Maturity: behavior traits exhibited during a child’s
development.
• Capacity: behavior traits of adapting and learning from the
child’s social environment.
Purpose of Research Study
• Arnold Gesell made a series of developmental readiness
tests and tasks to determine school readiness among
children in the 1950s and one of the tests developed was
the “Incomplete Man Test”, designed to investigate the
maturity, capacity, and individuality of children.
• The purpose of this research study is to use Gesell’s
“Incomplete Man Test” to investigate the maturity,
capacity, and individuality exhibited in the children of
2012 and to compare their results with the children of
the 1950s that Gesell studied.
Questions of Research Study
1. In a classroom with heterogeneous grouped children, will
children generally reveal the same maturity, capacity, and
individuality on Gesell’s Incomplete Man Test as did the
children that Gesell tested in the 1950s?
2. Are gifted and talented children more likely to show an
accelerated capacity through their drawing on the
Incomplete Man Test as compared to children who are in the
norm?
3. Will the children that draw facial expressions on the test,
show more maturity, capacity, and individuality than the
children that do not draw facial expressions?
Hypothesis
• I believe that the 4th graders will complete the
“Incomplete Man” with more capacity in that
they will draw the eyes, the mouth, etc. all the
necessary parts as opposed to the 1st graders.
The 4th graders will also give more complex
answers in how the Incomplete Man will feel
after they finish the drawing.
Procedure
• I visited a 1st grade class and a 4th grade class and I distributed the
“Incomplete Man Test” to the students who had signed assent forms agreeing
to participate in the study and whose parents have completed, signed, and
returned the parent consent forms agreeing to allow their children to
participate in the research.
• The meetings with each grade took approximately 20 minutes each.
• I handed out the “Incomplete Man Test” and asked the students to finish
the drawing.
• Each test was organized by the age and gender of each child that took the
test.
• The maturity, capacity, and individuality results of the 1st and 4th graders
was compared to the results of the children that Gesell studied in the 1950s.
Incomplete
Man Test
Procedure continued
• Rating system:
– After completing the test, the
child’s responses will be
recorded verbatim at the
bottom of the test page in the
space under the heading:
“Incomplete Man.”
– “Is there anything else?” will be
asked as a suggested clue and
the response will be recorded
by a broken line preceding the
response, as: __ __ hair.
– “Is there anything else missing
here?” will be asked as a
directed clue and the response
will be recorded by a solid line
preceding the response, as: ___
ear.
– If the child adds parts, it will be
recorded vertically on the left
side at the bottom of the
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
examiner’s recording sheet.
The responses to these
questions will be recorded in
the space at the lower-righthand side of the page.
Abbreviations will be used for
the following:
o Body line = bl
o Neck line = nl
o Looks like = ll
o I don’t know = idk
o How does he look? = hl
o How does he feel inside? = fi
o Is he happy or sad? = hs
o How can you tell? = ht
When testing is completed, the child’s
responses will be transferred from their
paper to the inquiry questions using
the above abbreviations.
Research Data
• Incomplete Man Results.pdf
Comparison
My study
• Ten children were able to
take my Incomplete Man
Test.
• Four 1st graders and six 4th
graders.
Gesell’s study
• Gesell and the Yale Clinic
studied 100 consecutive
cases of children from ages
3 to 9 years old.
Results
• Results of data.xlsx
Interesting Facts
• The three 6 year olds drew eyes but the rest of the
children did not. Instead, they drew a duplicate line
of the line that is supposed to be the nose as eyes.
• Overall, the 4th graders showed more capacity and
maturity in why their completed man felt the way
that he did after completing the drawing.
Final Results from Data
• The 4th graders (9 & some 10 year olds) showed
maturity and capacity in explaining why the man
felt the way he did.
• The 1st graders (6 & 7 year olds) showed more
individuality in their drawings and personalized it
more. They made smiles and said the man was
happy because he was smiling.
• The 4th graders gave more complex reasons for
why their man was sad or happy. One was in
love, one didn’t like their job, etc.
Conclusion
• I was correct in my hypothesis that the 4th
graders would give more complex reasoning
for why their Incomplete Man would be happy
or sad, however, I was wrong about how they
would draw/finish their Incomplete Man. The
1st graders drew some of the features more
like Gesell would expect than the 4th graders
did.
What Would I Have Done Differently?
• Because of limits on time for this research
study, I was not able to compare gifted and
talented children to “regular, average”
children.
Bibliography
• Crain, William. (2011) Chapter 2: Gesell’s Maturational Theory. Theories
of Development: Concepts and Applications. Sixth Edition. Prentice Hall.
• Gesell, Arnold. (1948). Studies in Child Development. New York and
London: Harper and Brothers Publishers.
• Ilg, Frances. (1978) School Readiness: Behavior Tests Used at the Gesell
Institute. New York: Harper & Row, Publishers.
• Gesell, Arnold and Ilg, Frances. (1943) Infant and Child in the Culture of
Today. New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers.
• Gesell, Arnold and Ilg, Frances. (1946) The Child from Five to Ten. London:
Hamish Hamilton LTD.
Theorist on Nature/Nurture Line
Center of Line
Nature
Nurture
Arnold
Gesell