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Cognitive Development
The development of the ability to think, including the construction of thought processes, learning structures, and systems in the brain, including remembering, symbolizing, problem solving, categorizing, reasoning, judging, creating, and decision making.
Jean Piaget developed the most influential and widely used theory of cognitive development. His genetic epistemological theory focused on the ability to more accurately represent the world. A process fundamental to this development is the construction of schemata (schemes), mental structures that are an organized way of making sense of experience and the world. Schemes change with age and cognitive expansion. Schemata are constructed through two processes. Adaptation, in which schemes are built through direct interaction with the environment, consists of the complementary activities of assimilation (the use of existing schemata to interpret the ...