On the cognition in cognitive development

I argue that Demetriou and Raftopoulos have presented a complex and thought -provoking model of cognitive developmental change, but one that is based o n a false and misleading assumption about the nature of representation. Thi s assumption-roughly, that representation is encoding-cannot work and has i nduced serious problems in the model. An alternative model of representatio n is outlined, in part for contrast and in I,art to demonstrate that the ap oria of encodingist assumptions can be avoided. The encodingist assumption about representation, however, is one that Demetriou and Raftopoulos share with the majority of psychologists, developmentalists included, so the stak es here are not limited to this model alone. (C) 1999 Academic Press.