ABSTRACT
Maturation is a modification of the organismic pattern in response to stimuli present in the inter-cellular and intra-cellular environment which at the given moment are independent of external influences. The concept is so difficult to manipulate that some writers have taken the position that any attempt to separate the maturational and learning processes only adds to intellectual confusion. Opposing the rigidity of the environmentalists' viewpoint, Arnold Gesell has been particularly active in popularizing the term maturation through the literature on child psychology. The original meaning of the term maturation has specific reference to the organization of chromosomes in the germ cells, although it has acquired a more general application in biological as well as psychological literature. The abundance of evidence gleaned from the several studies of the structural maturation of the newborn infant's brain, renders functional participation of the cortex problematical at this stage of development.
