Cognitive Development: Piagets and Vygotskys Theories

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Chapter 3

• Cognitive Development Piagets and Vygotskys
  Theories

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The proposition underlying a constructivist
approach is that children must construct their
own understandings of the world in which they
live.
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Constructivism is the basis for many current
reforms in education.
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Piaget had a major impact on the way we think
about childrens development.
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Piaget taught us that children act as little
scientists, trying to make sense of their
world.
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Children have their own logic and ways of
knowing, which follow predictable patterns of
development as children biologically mature and
interact with the world.
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Piaget was an early constructivist theorist in
psychology.
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Piaget believed that children actively construct
their own knowledge of the environment using what
they already know to interpret new events and
objects.
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Piaget was a stage theorist who divided cognitive
development into four major stages sensorimotor,
preoperations, concrete operations, and formal
operations.
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At each of Piagets stages of development,
childrens thinking is assumed to be
qualitatively different from their thinking at
other stages.
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Piaget proposed that cognitive development occurs
in an invariant sequence.
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Schemes are sets of physical actions, mental
operations, concepts, or theories people use to
acquire and organize information about their
world.
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Piaget distinguished between three types of
knowledge

• Physical knowledge
• Logico-mathematical knowledge
• Social knowledge

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In Piagets theory two basic principles guide
childrens intellectual developmentorganization
andadaptation
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A Childs Representation of Eight in Piagets
Theory (Figure 3.1)
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Piaget used the terms assimilation and
accommodation to describe how children adapt to
their environment.
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Through the process of assimilation children mold
new information to fit their existing schemes.
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The process of changing existing schemata is
called accommodation.
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As an interactional theorist, Piaget viewed
development as a complex interaction of innate
and environmental factors.
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According to Piaget, the following four factors
contribute to childrens cognitive development

• maturation of inherited physical structures
• physical experiences with the environment
• social transmission of information and
  knowledge
• equilibration

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Object permanence involves the knowledge that
objects continue to exist even when they can no
longer be seen or acted on.
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The ability to think about objects, events, or
people in their absence marks the beginning of
the preoperational stage.
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Piaget used the term preoperational stage because
preschool children lack the ability to do some of
the logical operations he observed in older
children.
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During the preoperational stage, children can use
symbols as a tool to think about their
environment.
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Along with an increased ability to use words and
images as symbols, children begin to use numbers
as a tool for thinking during the preschool years.
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Piaget found that young childrens conceptions
of the world are characterized by animism that
is, they do not distinguish between animate
(living) and inanimate (mechanical) objects.
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Childrens intuitive understandings of their
physical and biological concepts are a little
more sophisticated than Piaget believed.
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Metacognition is thinking about thinking,and
it plays a very important role in childrens
cognitive development during the middle
childhood and adolescent years.
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Perceiving and interpreting the world in terms of
self is called egocentrism.
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Three-year-olds seem to have what are called
collective monologues, in which their remarks
to each other are unrelated.
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Centration means that young children tend to
focus or center their attention on only one
aspect of a stimulus.
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Perspective-Taking Task (Figure 3.3)
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In elementary years, children begin to use mental
operations and logic to think about events and
objects in their environment.
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In the concrete operational stage

• Thinking appears to be less rigid.
• The child understands that operations can be
  mentally reversed or negated.

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Seriation Task (Figure 3.4)
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Seriation involves the ability to order objects
in a logical progression.
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Classification is a skill that begins to emerge
in early childhood.
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Matrix Classification Task (Figure 3.5)
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Are There More Dogs or Animals? (Figure 3.6)
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Conservation involves the understanding that an
entity remains the same despite superficial
changes in its form or physical appearance.
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Propositional logic involves the ability to draw
a logical inference based on the relationship
between two statements or premises.
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Pendulum Task (Figure 3.7)
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Piaget called the ability to generate and test
hypotheses in a logical and systematic manner
hypothetico-deductive thinking.
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Chemistry Task (Figure 3.8)
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The ability to think about multiple causes is
combinatorial reasoning.
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Ratio Task (Figure 3.9)
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Piaget has received the most criticism for his
ideas about the qualitative nature of cognitive
development.
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Neo-Piagetians theories have attempted to add
greater specificity to developmental changes,
while maintaining the basic assumptions of
Piagets theory.
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Piaget captured many of the major trends in
childrens thinking.
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Much of Piagets research focused on childrens
development of logical, scientific, and
mathematical concepts.
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One of the most important contributions of
Piagets work concerns the purposes and goals of
education.
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The second most important contribution of
Piagets research is the idea that knowledge is
constructed from the childs own physical and
mental activities.
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Piagets theory also emphasizes the important
role of play in childrens development.
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Lev Vygotsky was a major figure in Russian
psychology.
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Vygotskys theory stresses relations between
the individual and society.
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Vygotsky is considered one of the earliest
critics of Piagets theory of cognitive
development.
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According to Vygotsky, children are born with
elementary mental abilities such as perception,
attention, and memory.
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Vygotsky defined cognitive development in terms
of qualitative changes in childrens thinking
processes.
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Vygotsky believed language was an important
psychological tool which influenced childrens
cognitive development.
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Vygotsky identified three stages in childrens
use of language

• social
• egocentric
• inner speech

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Compared with Piaget, Vygotsky also placed a
stronger emphasis on culture in shaping
childrens cognitive development.
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To Vygotsky, the construction of knowledge is
not an individual construction process.
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Compared with Piaget, Vygotsky also placed a
stronger emphasis on culture in shaping
childrens cognitive development.
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Vygotsky believed instruction by more
knowledgeable peers or adults is at the heart of
cognitive development.
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Vygotsky believed that learning precedes
development.
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Vygotsky thought egocentric speech is the means
by which children move from being regulated by
others to being regulated by their own thinking
processes.
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Vygotskys theory places much less emphasis on
physical maturation or innate biological
processes than most other developmental theories.
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Vygotsky thought private speech serves an
important self-regulatory function.
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Both Piaget and Vygotsky emphasized the
importance of peers in childrens cognitive
development.
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Piaget and Vygotsky emphasized that children
are not passive recipients of knowledge and
recognized the value of play and activity for
cognitive development.
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