Domain-general learning
Developmental psychologist, Jean Piaget, theorized that one's cognitive ability, or intelligence – defined as the ability to adapt to all aspects of reality – evolves through a series of four qualitatively distinct stages (the sensorimotor, pre-operational, concrete operational and formal operational stages).
In the early 20th century, Charles Spearman noticed that children's scores on different measures of cognitive abilities were positively correlated.
Spearman believed that these correlations could be attributed to a general mental ability or process that is utilized across all cognitive tasks.
Spearman labeled this general mental ability as the g factor, and believed g could represent an individual's overall cognitive functioning.
[7] For example, researchers believe that with maturation, one is able to hold more complex structures in their working memory, which results in an increase of possible computations that underlie inference and learning.
[7] Within the last decade, researchers have begun to focus on a group of cognitive mechanisms, collectively named Executive Functions.
[6] Such studies revealed that the maturation of the prefrontal cortex (an area of the brain identified to underlie the development of executive functions such as working memory and inhibition) may relate to success on tasks that measure the Piagetian concept of object permanence.
[6][8] Thus, this research supports Piaget's notion that developmental changes in domain-general mechanisms promote cognitive development.
[5] Important to this perspective is the idea that such cognitive processes are domain-general, and are applied to learning many different kinds of information in addition to benefiting word acquisition.
Jerry Fodor, an American philosopher and cognitive scientist, stated in his 1983 book that brain modules are specialized and may only operate on certain kinds of inputs.
[10] Some argue that Piaget's domain general theory of learning undermines the influence of socio-cultural factors on an individual's development.
[11] Domain-specificity has been defined by Frankenhuis and Ploeger as that “a given cognitive mechanism accepts, or is specialized to operate on, only a specific class of information”.
Current research suggests these networks may exist together in the brain, and the extent to which they function in tandem may vary by task and skill-level.
This may suggest that school curricular should incorporate activities focusing on developing the necessary skills for dynamic environments.
Domain general problem solving provides students with cross-curricular skills and strategies that can be transferred to multiple different situations/environments/domains.
This means parents of young children and early childhood educators may want to consider its application while supporting language development.
