Jean Piaget's theories are pretty in line with this. In his book "Biology and Knowledge" he sets forth the idea that higher level cognitive abilities are built

Jean Piaget's theories are pretty in line with this. In his book "Biology and Knowledge" he sets forth the idea that higher level cognitive abilities are built via the coordination and integration of basic sensory/motor behaviors. The progressive construction of higher level behaviors eventually leads to logico-mathematical thought. He even did extensive biological experiments to demonstrate that these concepts are valid interpretations of organic biological phenomena and thus reasonably extendable into the domain of cognitive development. It's a shame his work was reduced to the "stages" theory, which really doesn't do justice to his work as a whole.