ABSTRACT
Contributions and limitations of the cognitive-developmental approach
Summary
Key assumptions of the approach
Something for you to try if you haven’t ever done it or seen it done. Next time you are talking to a child of six or under, ask them who makes the weather, and whether their toys have been behaving themselves.* The answers you get may tell you something interesting about the ways in which children’s thinking differs from your own. You might find for example that the child firmly believes that the weather-presenter on television is personally responsible for the current weather. Trying to use logic to persuade the child they are wrong-for example by flicking channels and showing that there are several weather presenters predicting different weather for the following daywill probably cut very little ice. This phenomenon whereby children think that people are responsible for natural phenomena is called artificialism.
