Social and cognitive development in infancy

The relation between social and cognitive development has been important in several accounts of infant development. Piaget’s theory specifies that social and cognitive development become significant at eight months and are closely linked thereafter. Brazelton and Trevarthen emphasize the role of social development and social interaction from the first months on. Neither theory predominates today, but studies of new topics such as the infant’s discrimination of people and objects may help decide which is correct. In contrast to the question of when infants distinguish the social from the cognitive, it is obvious that the social and physical environments of the child are fundamentally different all along. Adults, and not objects, have expectations for infant development and adjust their behaviour in line with those expectations. The research on developmental outcome preserves this difference. Cognitive development in infancy proceeds normally in a great many environments. Social development, on the other hand, has been found to vary with the characteristics of the caregiver. This difference between social and cognitive development is interpretable in terms of the difference between the social and physical worlds.