ABSTRACT
An issue that has played a central and controversial role in the field of intellectual development, virtually since its inception, is the question of whether or not children pass through a set of general stages in their intellectual growth. Baldwin (1894) was probably the first to postulate a set of general cognitive-developmental stages. However, it was Piaget’s (1954, 1962) re-working of Baldwin’s theory that had the greatest impact on the field, for what Piaget added to Baldwin’s account was the notion of a ‘logical structure’: that is, a coherent set of internal operations that were domain-independent, and whose gradual evolution and transformation were responsible for propelling children through the observed sequence of cognitive-developmental changes.
