Ames, Louise Bates

Louise Bates Ames (1908–1996) was an American child psychologist who promoted the importance of maturation and biological timing in development. She was a follower of Arnold L. Gesell (1880–1961), with whom she studied and worked at Yale University. After Gesell retired, Ames and two of her colleagues founded the Gesell Institute in New Haven, Connecticut, to continue his work. Ames also conducted important research on children's responses on the Rorschach Inkblot Test. In addition to her scientific writing, she wrote a popular syndicated column on child care and presented many of her ideas on television, becoming one of the first modern media psychologists.

Louise Bates was born in Portland, Maine, the oldest child of a local judge and a housewife. She grew up in a bookish household (Ames, 1996) and attended Wheaton College, intending to become a lawyer like her father. After 2 years, she transferred to the University of Maine, where a faculty member sparked her interest in psychology. She dropped out during her senior year to marry Smith Whittier Ames (they later divorced) but returned to school after a year and graduated in 1933 with a master's degree in psychology. After graduation, she applied to Yale University, hoping to study children. She was accepted into the doctoral program in experimental psychology, the only program available there in psychology at the time.

Her educational experiences at Yale were not entirely satisfactory (Ames, 1993). She felt that many of the faculty looked down on child and clinical psychology, her major areas of interest, and she was encouraged to drop out of the program. Fortunately, she was a research assistant to Arnold Gesell, a psychologist and pediatrician, perhaps the most prominent child care expert of his day. Her work with him determined the future direction of her career.

Gesell had founded the Child Study Center at Yale in 1911, after receiving his PhD degree from Clark University. While at Yale, he completed all the requirements for an MD degree. He is best known for his establishment of developmental norms for children, with a heavy emphasis on motor development. Gesell's work was largely descriptive, but it had important practical implications for infant care. He discouraged parents from pushing children beyond what he saw as their physical limits. For instance, he counseled parents to be more flexible about their expectations for toilet training.

Ames's master's thesis was the perfect preparation for work with Gesell. She had conducted research on the development of motor coordination in a child from birth to 2 years (Ames, 1933)—using her own daughter as her subject. For her doctoral dissertation, she made use of the massive amount of film that Gesell had gathered. He had been a pioneer in the use of film for studying children. Her research, later published with Gesell, demonstrated that infant motor behavior did emerge in predictable ways, although not always in a straight line. She received her doctoral degree from Yale in 1936, after 3 years of study.

Ames and her colleagues at Yale continued to conduct extensive observation and research on children. Their findings were summarized in a series of books aimed at parents. Most of their efforts attempted to describe the development of the typical child during specific age periods. The books became very popular and were translated into many languages. Gesell's retirement in 1948 temporarily interrupted the productivity of the group. Yale had decided to take a different approach to the study of children, and the Gesell team found they were no longer welcome there. Ames and two of her associates left Yale and founded the Gesell Institute nearby, but not officially associated with the university. They supported the institute largely through earnings from their books and other writings and public appearances.

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