ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at the twin underpinnings of our understanding of child development, behavioural psychology and neurobiology. Traditionally society has studied children's behaviour through observation. The chapter summarizes key theories developed since the 1930s about stages of human development and identifies distinct characteristics and recognizable milestones (Jean Piaget, Jerome Bruner, Lev Vygotsky) as well as Kieran Egan's study of imaginative understandings. Included is research from the educator Mark Fettes which explains how, through cultural tools they are provided, children develop their abilities for grasping concepts of substance, process, and integration for engaging with the world. The chapter considers children's ability to engage with games at different ages and shows how they might react to situations in which characters with disabilities find themselves. It discusses a child's cognitive ability to engage with the tasks which characters must undertake to succeed within the narrative and different skill levels of games. The chapter discusses the neuroscience which supports behavioural observation and the development periods suggested by synaptic activity between ages 3 and 10. Research on mirror neurons and how these make real the aesthetics of images shows why children may respond to types of representation in games.
