The cumulative-learning model espoused by Robert Gagne attempts to explain cognitive development as the acquistion of new capabilities that result explicitly through learning.
Cognitive growth is based on a child's ability to acquire sets of rules.
Behavior based on complex rules is a result of previously acquiring a requiste set of simpler rules. Gagne's theory of learning provides no explicit explanation of developmental processes except as it relates to an individual's reinforcement history becoming more extensive and complex with age. Basic Ideas on Learning Intellectual growth is the result of learning. Learning is characterized by building increasingly complex sets of acquired capabilities. Information to be learned occurs through different types of learning or task levels signal response or stimulus learning stimulus-response chaining verbal association multiple discrimination concept learning principle or rule learning problem solving Laterial transfer involves the interaction of material learned in one area with later approaches to learning information in another area.