Changes in mental abilities – such as learning, memory, reasoning, thinking, and language – are aspects of intellectual development. The concrete operational period is the period of middle childhood. It extends from about age 6 to about age 11 or 12.

Today, the large majority of child psychologists identify themselves with one of three general theoretical views – the cognitive-developmental approach, the environmental/learning approach, or the ethnological approach.

The cognitive-developmental approach encompasses a number of related theories and kinds of research. This approach is most closely associated with the work of Piaget (1952). Sometime between 5 and 7 years of age, according to Piaget, children enter the stage of concrete operations, when they can think logically about the here and now. They generally remain in this sage until about age 11. But development at these ages is still highly significant. Intellectual growth is substantial, as the once ago centric, child becomes more logical. And the accumulation of day-by-day changes results in a starting difference between 6-year-olds and 12-year-olds.

According to Piaget’s theory, human development can be described in terms of functions and structures. The most fundamental aspect of Piaget’s theory, and often the most difficult to comprehend, is his belief that intelligence is not something that a child has but something that a child does. Piaget’s child understands the world only by acting on it, making intelligence a process rather than a static store of information.

For Piaget development refers to this continual reorganization of the child’s knowledge into new and more complex structures. Piaget was a stage theorist. In his view, all children move through the same stages of cognitive development in the same order.

The most influential contemporary theory of the effects of social experience on cognitive development is that of Soviet psychologist Lev Vygotsky ( 1962). Vygotsky’s theory includes a number of related emphases.

Perhaps the most general emphasis is on the culture as a determinant of individual development. Humans are the only species that have created cultures, and every human child in the context of a culture. The culture makes two sorts of contributions to the child’s intellectual development. First, children acquire much of the content of their thinking from it. Second, children acquire much of the means of their thinking – or what Vygotskians call the tools of intellectual adaptation – from it. In short, the surrounding culture teaches children both what to think and how to think.

Environmental/learning theories begin with the assumption that much of children’s typical behaviour is acquired through conditioning and learning principles.

Learning theory, in contrast, holds that children’s toy preferences do not necessarily grow out of what they know about their gender but often result from what has happened when they played with certain toys. B. F. Skinner (1953) accepted the role of Pavlov’s conditioning of reflexes, but he added to learning theory a second type of behaviour and, correspondingly, a second type of learning. According to his model, all behaviour falls into one of two categories – respondent behaviours and operant behaviours.

Behaviour analyses also views human development as passing through stages, termed the foundational stage (infancy) the bases stage (childhood and adolescence), and the societal stage (adulthood and old age).

Scientists say that the environment influences behaviour in four ways:

The environment puts constraints on behaviour; it limits what we can do.

The environment elicits behaviour; it tells us how to act.

The environment moulds the self.

Environments affect the self-image.

To conclude, language is developed quickly in middle childhood, children can understand and interpret communications better, and they are better able to make themselves understood.

Cognitive/development theory contends that children first develop an understanding that they are male or female consistently with their gender, as when a girl comes to prefer playing with dolls to playing with trucks. The cognitive-development approach to human development is based on the belief that cognitive abilities are fundamental and that they guide children’s behaviour.

The most influential current theory of how social experience affects cognitive development is that of Vygotsky. Vygotsky’s theory stresses the child’s gradual internalization of culturally provided forms of knowledge and tools of adaptation, primarily through verbal interchanges with parents.