Dr. Montessori's first interest as a physician was to care for children with "special needs". Basing her work on the principles evolved by two French doctors and educators – Seguin and Itard her observations made her realize that the natural aptitude of children and their potential for development were being overlooked and not harnessed in a way that would bring the greatest benefit to their growth. She delved deeply into how children learn and how they build themselves from what they find in their immediate environment. She had the intuition and insight to recognize that a growing child has keen sensitivities and a highly absorbent mind and that children take in impressions and learn patterns of behavior, knowledge and skills through a series of personal experiences offered in the environment around them, and that these are the first steps of learning in their lives.

In 1906 she accepted the challenge to work with children in the San Lorenzo district of Rome. It was here that she founded the first "Casa dei Bambini", where the Montessori method of education was developed. Every exercise, every method, every piece of equipment Dr. Montessori developed was based on what she observed children to do naturally, by themselves, unassisted by adults.

She summarized these experiences in her book titled, "The Discovery of the Child."