Running head: ROUGH DRAFT 1 ROUGH DRAFT 2 Rough Draft Simon Duku Rasmussen College Author Note This paper is being submitted on June 1, 2016, for Amanda Fox's General Psychology course. Annotated Bibliography By the time, one reaches adulthood he or she has learned a lot about how the world works. The knowledge accumulates through the process of cognitive development that involves different factors that are either learned or inherent. Cognitive development is, therefore, the development of thinking across one’s lifespan. The article explains cognitive development in children, the major theories that explain it and the role of nurture and nature. Cognitive development involves change. The ways of thinking in children always change drastically. The articles explain different theories of the development of a child. Piaget’s discusses whether the progress of children is qualitatively through various stages (Dibbets and Jolles, 2006). Sociocultural theories emphasize how attitudes, beliefs and values of a given culture influence the development of a child. Theories such as that of David Klahr examine mental processes that lead to thinking at any a time and the transition stages that leads to growth to thinking. Based on the theories the author asks two important questions. He questions on how the interaction nurture and nature causes cognitive development or whether it progresses through qualitatively different stages. The main question is whether both nature and nurture shape development. Nurture is the biological endowment while nature is the environment one lives in whether physical or social (Halford, 2008). The question is translated for example whether the genes cause our intelligence one receives from the parents or the interaction of the genes with the environment. One way in which nature and nurture work together is in visual development. Vision may be seen as inborn but also depend on the right experience at the right time. A complexity of the interaction of nature and nurture is when the genes of children lead to different treatment from other people thus influencing their cognitive development. Another complexity of the connection between nature and nurture is the role played by children themselves in shaping their cognitive development. From their first day of birth, children actively choose to attend less or more to some things. Their contribution to cognitive development grows more as they grow older. An example in the article is the stage where children actions have to be determined by their elders for instance where to attend school, which books to read and so on. On the other hand, older children tend to choose their environment to a greater degree. Another concern of cognitive development is whether it progresses through different stages as suggested by different psychology personalities. For instance Jean, Piaget cognitive development occurs in four stages, the sensorimotor stage, preoperational reasoning stage, ...

1. Running head: ROUGH DRAFT 1
ROUGH DRAFT 2
Rough Draft
Simon Duku
Rasmussen College
Author Note
This paper is being submitted on June 1, 2016, for Amanda
Fox's General Psychology course.
Annotated Bibliography
By the time, one reaches adulthood he or she has learned a lot
about how the world works. The knowledge accumulates
through the process of cognitive development that involves
different factors that are either learned or inherent. Cognitive
development is, therefore, the development of thinking across
one’s lifespan. The article explains cognitive development in
children, the major theories that explain it and the role of
nurture and nature.
Cognitive development involves change. The ways of thinking
in children always change drastically. The articles explain
different theories of the development of a child. Piaget’s
discusses whether the progress of children is qualitatively
through various stages (Dibbets and Jolles, 2006). Sociocultural

2. theories emphasize how attitudes, beliefs and values of a given
culture influence the development of a child. Theories such as
that of David Klahr examine mental processes that lead to
thinking at any a time and the transition stages that leads to
growth to thinking.
Based on the theories the author asks two important questions.
He questions on how the interaction nurture and nature causes
cognitive development or whether it progresses through
qualitatively different stages. The main question is whether both
nature and nurture shape development. Nurture is the biological
endowment while nature is the environment one lives in whether
physical or social (Halford, 2008).
The question is translated for example whether the genes cause
our intelligence one receives from the parents or the interaction
of the genes with the environment. One way in which nature and
nurture work together is in visual development. Vision may be
seen as inborn but also depend on the right experience at the
right time. A complexity of the interaction of nature and nurture
is when the genes of children lead to different treatment from
other people thus influencing their cognitive development.
Another complexity of the connection between nature and
nurture is the role played by children themselves in shaping
their cognitive development. From their first day of birth,
children actively choose to attend less or more to some things.
Their contribution to cognitive development grows more as they
grow older. An example in the article is the stage where
children actions have to be determined by their elders for
instance where to attend school, which books to read and so on.
On the other hand, older children tend to choose their
environment to a greater degree.
Another concern of cognitive development is whether it
progresses through different stages as suggested by different
psychology personalities. For instance Jean, Piaget cognitive
development occurs in four stages, the sensorimotor stage,
preoperational reasoning stage, concrete operational reasoning
stage and lastly the operational reasoning stage. The stages

3. represent periods during which the infant’s reason similarly
about different problems, where the stages are happening, so
that is fixed and thinking within different stages differ in a
fundamental manner.
The theory by Piaget has been very influential though hasn’t
gone unchanged. Recent researchers indicate that cognitive
development is continuous rather than stages progressive. From
the author’s two perceptive the reader is left with a question
whether development is fundamentally discontinuous or
fundamentally continuous. The answer depends on the
dimension one looks at it and how often one look at it (Lao and
Kuhn, 2002). For instance, under facilitative circumstances,
children shows object permanence by the age of three to four
months and the mountainously extend the period for which they
can recall hidden objects as they grow. According to Piaget
object permanence task, children do change quickly towards the
end the first year from not reaching for the toys that are hidden,
even after they experience a delay before being allowed to reach
them.
The article analyses how important it is to understand how
children think and learn in improving their education. Research
on cognitive development has resulted in phonemic awareness
or other words the components of sounds in words. Another
application is in mathematics. Researchers found that children
from low-class lag behind as compared to those of affluent
background due to the difference in engagement in numerical
activities. Theses spatial, verbal broad-based cues and
kinesthetic multisensory knowledge foundation of the numerical
magnitudes is a knowledge type that is related to the excellent
performances in a mathematics test. Understanding the
cognitive development has therefore enhanced the link between
the brain activities to change in children’s thinking.
The article shows that research on cognitive development has
demonstrated one’s mind do not form as per the uniform
blueprint or the innate intellect but through different
influencing factors. Through understanding children’s cognitive

4. development their way of learning can be influenced in a
positive manner. The article comprehensively covered the issue
of cognitive development, but there was the need to compare
other theories of development. The author however only used
Piaget theory of cognitive development and the influence of
nurture and nature which forms a narrow range of comparison
and contrast.
References
Dibbets, P., & Jolles, J. (2006). The Switch Task for Children:
Measuring Mental Flexibility In Young Children. Cognitive
Development,21(1), 60-71.
Halford, G. (2008). Cognitive Developmental Theories.
Encyclopedia of Infant and Early Childhood Development, 298-
308.
Lao, J., & Kuhn, D. (2002). Cognitive engagement and attitude
development. Cognitive Development,17(2), 1203-1217.
Robert, S. (2014). Cognitive Development in Childhood.
Retrieved May 30, 2016, from
http://nobaproject.com/modules/cognitive-development-in-
childhood