By Developmentally Appropriate, we simply mean that toys, educational products and instruction are designed to directly correlate with the child’s current physical, social, and cognitive developmental abilities.

As discussed in the brain development section, well-known Psychologist Jean Piaget believed that early learning progresses from concrete to abstract thought.  Since a baby or young child learns about his world by manipulating toys or objects using his senses of sight, hearing and touch, programs that attempt to teach abstract abilities that seem “too good to be true,” probably are.  In the long run the child will probably not be proficient in the desired area because the brain was not capable of truly understanding what it was being asked to do.

Physical development follows a specific order of events as well. Since development progresses from gross motor (large muscles) to fine motor (small

muscles such as fingers) we wouldn’t expect a baby to write before he can walk.  Generally, if the activities that we are expecting the child to perform are ahead of his developmental calendar they will not only be ineffective, but will cause frustration for both mother and child. When instruction and products are developmentally appropriate the frustration is removed and learning is fun!