ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a way of looking at developing conceptual systems, and the process by which they are developed, extracting from this view some principles that enable people to decide what changes and what does not change with age and with exposure to schooling. It focuses on the preschool child primarily to emphasize what the continuities in cognitive development are, and to show how the complex knowledge of the school child and adult is derived from the base established in early childhood. The chapter considers the acquisition of knowledge in terms of forming concepts which are defined by and embedded in a context or system, initially an event structure, later also a categorical or semantic structure. It also considers the process of concept formation and the development of the conceptual system in more detail to determine what dimensions of development are relevant.
