Reasoning Origins

The developmental process is remarkably dynamic. The process is both a biological one and an environmental one with both factors frequently contributing to the output of increasingly sophisticated and abstract reasoning behavior. Children begin with a process of cortical thickening as large numbers of synaptic connections are formed. From age three onward, the cortex undergoes a tuning process as some synaptic connections strengthen and others weaken. The net result of this process is a decrease in cortical volume from age 5 through 20. Children's thinking is guided by a variety of factors. The context of a problem becomes a significant factor in determining how children will reason and developmental reasoning studies require sensitivity toward making the experimental stimuli understandable and interesting to the child. Children exhibit some competencies in causal reasoning and learning from a very young age. Children show increasing reasoning abilities as they develop. Skills such as relational and analogical reasoning grow during the elementary school years and are supported by increases in cognitive control and decreases in impulsivity. The child becomes less concrete in how he or she views and interacts with the world. This increasing abstraction ability encompasses semantic knowledge, deduction, and moral thinking.