Cognitive development concepts and theories

Cognitive Development

The objective of this work is to compare and contrast Piaget's Theory of Cognitive Development and Vygotsky's Sociocultural Theory of Development. Additionally this work will provide specific examples of how teachers can incorporate each of these theories in the classroom."

To Jean Piaget, the most vital element in the individual development of cognition of a child was based on interacting among his own peers and that this interaction results in conflict on the cognitive level. Piaget held that children were not as challenged in their interactions with those considered their peers, as they would be when among adults. Vygotsky's assertion was that a child learns best among peers who are more skilled which provides the child with a scaffold comprised of intellect and experience and through this; the child is able to complete tasks much more complex than they would be capable of on their own. DeVries (nd) writes in the work entitled: "Vygotsky, Piaget, and Education: A Reciprocal Assimilation of Theories and Educational Practices" which incidentally is a comparison of Vygotsky and Piaget, that she was for quite a long time "unable to see Vygotsky as a constructivist." She relates that those who have read Vygotsky in Russian challenge this and state that he certainly is a constructivist and states that evidence supporting that Vygotsky is indeed a constructivist "comes principally from his theory of the dialectic." (DeVries, nd Otherwise DeVries states that Vygotsky sounded like Piaget in the statement of:

any new form of cultural experience does not simply come from outside independently of the state of the organism at a given point of development. The fact is that the organism that is mastering external influences masters a number of forms of behavior or assimilates these forms depending on its level of mental development...these external materials are reprocessed and assimilated in the organism." (1981; 169)

I. PIAGET: STAGES of DEVELOPMENT

Piaget stated: "To know an object or a happening is to make use of it by assimilation into an action schema. Human beings know the world in selective ways - if a stimulus cannot be incorporated into an action schema, it will remain outside the domain of knowledge."

It can be understood then that a child constructs knowledge in a process that is active. From this view as the child internalizes the actions they become ideas and are neither completely mental nor completely cultural but are ideas that spring from the interaction of the child with the world around them. Piaget views the child as moving through specific stages. The first stage is the stages referred to as reflexes stage from birth to six weeks of age. The second stage if the stage in which the child is six weeks to four months of age when the child acquires habits suck as thumb-sucking. The third stage is from age four months to age 8 months in which the child learns that he can affect his environment. The fourth stage is age 9 to 12 months in which the child learns coordinated secondary circular reactions. The fifth stage is age 12 to 18 months in which the child learns to apply established means to an end. The six stage is one in which the child learns symbolic representation.

II. VYGOTSKY: STAGES of DEVELOPMENT

Vygotsky held that a child developed in stages as well however, Vygotsky did not fix the stages of development as he described "leading activities" that can be thought as typical of specific ages which intellectual development is organized around. The stages of development posited by Vygotsky are those as follows with the descriptions of each stage of development.

____Age

Characteristic

Infant 0-2 years Affiliation

Early Childhood (2-7 years) Play

Middle Childhood (7-12 years) Learning

Adolescence (12-19 years) Peer

Adulthood Work

Source: Thomas (2008)

III. DIFFERENCES BETWEEN PIAGET and VYGOTSKY

According to Dr. Michael Thomas in the work entitled: "Cognitive Language and Development" while Piaget was reliant upon the clinical method of using questions that probed and uncovered the understanding of children, Vygotsky was concerned "with historical and social aspects of human behavior that make human nature unique." (Thomas, 2008) Vygotsky held that a close link existed between the child's language acquisition and thinking development and that "speech carries culture in that it stores the history of social experience and is a 'tool' for thought."(Thomas, 2008) Piaget, on the other hand, "outlined a theory that states that the precursors of thinking and language lie in the elementary actions, perceptions, and imitations of babies." (Thomas, 2008) While Piaget held that the child's speech is egocentric while preschool age and that "as the child approaches school age, ego centric speech atrophies." (Dahl, nd) Vygotsky holds that ego centric speech "has a very specific function." (Dahl, nd) Vygotsky stated: "Our findings indicate that egocentric speech does not long remain a mere accompaniment to the child's activity. Besides being a means of express and of release of tension, it soon becomes an instrument of though in the proper sense - in seeking and planning the solution of a problem." (Vygotsky, 1962; p.16)

IV. APPLICATION of PIAGET and VYGOTSKY in the CLASSROOM