64 Unit 2 The Learner
your thoughts to write a paragraph. These and other processes involving
thought and knowledge are called cognition. The way people change
and improve in their ability to think and learn throughout life is called
cognitive development, or intellectual development.
Like physical skills, cognitive abilities increase gradually. Consider
your math skills as a fi rst grader, an eighth grader, and now. Your skills
have improved dramatically over that time span. As a result, the way you
are taught math has changed, too. Your current teachers assume you have
mastered the most basic concepts. As time progresses, they present more
diffi cult concepts and expect you to do more independently by reading
your textbook and solving homework problems.
With increasing understanding of how the brain develops and works,
scientists are providing new insights into cognitive development. The
development of connections between nerve cells in the brain is a key com-
ponent to cognitive development at all stages of life. Brain connections
grow and strengthen with new experiences and repetition of familiar
ones. For example for an infant, the faces of parents and other primary
caregivers become familiar because they are seen most often. After a few
months, the sight of these people may be rewarded with a smile of recogni-
tion. Later, the names of those caregivers may be among the child’s fi rst
spoken words.
Social-Emotional Development
Social-emotional development includes the areas of relationships
and feelings. Individuals must learn social skills and how to care about
others. They must develop both self-confi dence and self-esteem. For
example, learning self-control is an important skill for kindergarteners.
Students learn to wait their turn, form a line, and listen while the teacher
gives instructions.
At each stage of development, social and emotional challenges increase.
New skills must be developed to deal with increasing independence of
childhood, the more complex social situations of adolescence, establish-
ing an identity, adult relationships, parenting, careers, retirement, and
the other challenges of life. How well individuals meet those challenges
depends on the skills they developed earlier in life and how well they are
able to adapt them to new situations, 3-2.
Principles of Human Development
It is the nature of human beings to try to fi gure things out. Observations
about human development go back to the beginning of recorded history.