In the educative environment, the promotion of cognitive development has materialized in distinct proposals of intervention known as programmes for "teaching how to think" or cognitive development programmes (CDP). Taking as a starting point the establishment of the need for a critical approach to the conceptual framing and design of such programmes, the article presents a model of analysis that starts by questioning the theoretical models that are at the base of the CDPs. It proposes as theoretical frameworks of the analysis undertaken, the theories of development and of cognition emerging from the cognitive neurosciences and from evolutionary biology, integrated in the paradigm of complexity and based on this, elaborates a model of analysis applied to a set of selected programmes. The proposed model can contribute to a rethinking of the existing programmes and to proposing new forms of intervention in this particular field.
cognitive development programmes; complexity; models of cognition
