Keywords
causality
cognitive development
How to Cite
Abstract
Like other cognitive skills, the ability to reason causally changes during the course of development from early childhood to adulthood. There is, however, no agreement about how its development occurs. In this paper we propose a theoretical analysis to understand this process, namely, the idea that causal reasoning is a domain-general ability that is gradually enriched by the refinement of metacognitive skills, which allows reasoning independently from the immediate context. This proposal is based on the analysis of evidence of causal reasoning in young children, as well as evidence of integration of these skills during early adolescence with processes of argumentation and explanation. The paper also points out some methodological differences in studies with children and adolescents.This journal is registered under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License. Thus, this work may be reproduced, distributed, and publicly shared in digital format, as long as the names of the authors and Pontificia Universidad Javeriana are acknowledged. Others are allowed to quote, adapt, transform, auto-archive, republish, and create based on this material, for any purpose (even commercial ones), provided the authorship is duly acknowledged, a link to the original work is provided, and it is specified if changes have been made. Pontificia Universidad Javeriana does not hold the rights of published works and the authors are solely responsible for the contents of their works; they keep the moral, intellectual, privacy, and publicity rights. Approving the intervention of the work (review, copy-editing, translation, layout) and the following outreach, are granted through an use license and not through an assignment of rights. This means the journal and Pontificia Universidad Javeriana cannot be held responsible for any ethical malpractice by the authors. As a consequence of the protection granted by the use license, the journal is not required to publish recantations or modify information already published, unless the errata stems from the editorial management process. Publishing contents in this journal does not generate royalties for contributors.