Theories of cognitive development have moved away from the “one-stop shop” view, according to which a single developmental mechanism is responsible for change, and towards a “toolkit” view, whereby domain-general and domain-specific mechanisms interact to produce the behavior we observe.
Still, a large amount of variability in cognitive development is not accounted for either in our methods or in our theories. Individual differences continue to represent a great challenge for the scientific study of developmental change.
In this talk I will describe experiments which put both intra- and inter-individual variability at centre-stage. Drawing on examples from folk physics and folk psychology in 2- to 15-year-old children, I will discuss some ways in which individual differences contribute to our understanding of cognitive development.