ABSTRACT
Students of development, including parents, educators, cognitive scientists, and neuroscientists agree that knowledge of the neural substrate that permits and implements cognitive growth will promote a basic understanding of the time course of cognitive development, of individual differences in cognitive development and, in addition, will contribute to the design of programs that optimize cognitive development. Everyone acknowledges that there is an important role for the genotype in human development and that experience is essential in the expression of that genotype. A key issue within neuroscience and within psychological science is to specify the degree to which the genetic constraints limit the scaffolding and to know the degree to which these constraints can be modified and the times in human development when they can be modified.
