With eyes to the future: a brief history of cognitive development.

Predicting the future, even the near future, of theory and research in cognitive development is a formidable task. To do so in a relatively short chapter allows one to hit the highlights and forgo the all-too-important details, which makes the task a bit less daunting. To help set the stage for this chapter, a brief account of the recent history of the field is provided. Then the discussion turns to several areas of current research that follow up on some important themes in this history, specifically the biological bases of cognitive development (particularly in relation to emotional functioning), learning and cognitive development, and the contribution of the social context to intellectual growth. This chapter has two aims. The first is to point out how some current areas of research are bringing together ideas about cognition and its development that have been percolating in the field for a while. The second is to suggest that these areas of research hold much promise for advancing our understanding of development in a way that integrates the cognitive, social, emotional, and biological aspects of growth. Such integration stands as a goal of the field at large, and it appears that research in cognitive development may play a central role in this formulation.