Cognitive and Brain Development: Executive Function, Piaget, and the Prefrontal Cortex

Abstract

Piaget was the first psychologist to systematically investigate cognitive development by proposing the theory of constructivism and thereby creating a new approach to examine learning. He stated that children think and reason differently at distinct periods in their lives. Based on this theory, educators and researchers have been exploring the idea of staggered childhood development of cognition and learning. However, there has been a distinct lack of consideration of the concurrent anatomical and physiological development of the brain. This literature review explores the Piagetian and neoPiagetian theories in the context of recent findings concerning anatomical and physiological brain devel..