Cognitive development focuses on the processes of thought and behavior that reflects these processes. It is the basis of the five human development prospects largely accepted (the other 4 are a psychoanalytic perspective, the perspective of learning, evolutionary/sociobiological perspective and contextual perspective). Cognition is the relationship between the knower and the object to be known and generally starts when this gets done an internal representation of the phenomenon become an object of knowledge. Jean Piaget developed the theory of psychogenesis (genetic psychology), meaning that from heredity the individual constructs his own intelligible evolution in interaction with the environment in which it develops their basic subsistence capabilities: organization and adaptation. .
The organization is the process by which intelligence as a whole relates internally with parts and these, in turn, called 'schemes' so are blended by reciprocal assimilation. The organization is coupled to adaptation, one of the two functional invariants. .
Adaptation is the state of balance between assimilation and accommodation, it means, between the adequacy of the environment to the individual, and the adequacy of the individual to the environment, respectively influence. The more balance exists between assimilation and accommodation; the better will be adapted to the individual. Piaget distinguishes an organic fit and functional adaptation, constituting the most advanced intelligent adaptation of the latter example. It is a concept of biology. At the root of all adaptive process there is always some change, and what Piaget hold, following the theoretical guidelines of biology, is that such changes always occur in the body and in the environment: whether an environmental disturbance occurs, the body must also change to adapt to such alteration (the latter is called accommodation), and vice versa, an alteration in the body is compensated by an environmental change (the latter is called assimilation).
