Piaget in Order to Fully

¶ … Piaget

In order to fully understand the Piagetian experiments, one of the pivotal question to be addressed is how does the child transition from groping to invention? This is vital in the sense of understanding the Paiget cognitive development mode. To wit, does it happen due to what Paiget refers to as "fortuitous contact with external facts"? Is that how the child, Jacqueline, figures how to work the pencil -- through trial and error, or experimentation? Not really. Paiget explains that the transition from groping to actual invention is "primarily due to a difference in speed." It is a step-by-step process, Paiget explains.

Witnessing Jacqueline suddenly seem to be inventive (cognitive) is a fallacy in this experiment because it took her thirteen attempts to figure it out. This was not a bolt out of the blue for Jacqueline. She actually, after thirteen attempts to put the second pencil in the right end, "foresees which maneuvers will fail and which will succeed" (340). This is cognitive progress. And it didn't just happen in an exploratory, innovative way, although it certainly seemed like that. In fact in the narrative report, for Lucienne, she opened her mouth hoping to enlarge the hold in the box for the chain. "Opening her mouth in front of the slit to be enlarged implies some underlying idea of efficacy," Paiget continues (338).

Moreover, opening of the mouth is an indication of "imitation" and shows she is cognitively thinking about making the chain fit properly. And hence this is an example of Paiget's model, and the incident with Lucienne reflects the fact that the child has an emerging awareness of relationships.

Meantime why did Jacqueline act as she did when, after seeing the facilitator put a pencil, point down, into one of the holes, laugh and follow suit? And why, in Observation 181, when Lucienne pushed the doll carriage over the carpet until it came to a wall, how did she know to pull it, walking backward? Since pulling backwards wasn't the easiest way to go, Lucienne paused and "without hesitation" she goes to the other side to push the carriage (as opposed to pulling it by walking backwards) -- how and why did this happen to the little girl? Paiget believes that the learning developed for Lucienne because "…apparently through analogy to other situations," and without any training, guidance, apprenticeship, or chance (358).

This sample, along with others presented, goes quite a long way toward being a solid piece of evidence that the Piagetian model of cognitive development is valid. Also in Observation 181, as regards what Piaget calls "kinematic representations," when Lucienne tried to kneel before a stool, but accidentally by leaning against it she pushes it away from her instead of getting closer. But Lucienne raised herself up, takes the stool and pushes it against a sofa so it cannot slide away from her on the carpet. It is pinned against the sofa. She can now kneel against it with no difficulty. How did she know to do that. Perhaps it was also due to analogy to other situations. Moreover, as Piaget explains, children's behavior patterns are based on invention and representation, not merely innocent discovery, and not only sensorimotor groping. The transition from groping to actual invention is also supportive of Piagetian model of cognitive development.

Thinking Development -- Vygotsky and his Example (ZPD)

In general terms Lev Vygotsky argued that "situated social interaction" that is connected with "concrete practical activity in the material world" are the root drivers for cultural and individual development (Thorne, 1998). Vygotsky developed the "genetic law of cultural development," which stresses that the first cultural development for a child appears "twice or on two planes," according to the University of Helsinki. The first appearance for the young child is "interpsychologically," in interaction between people; and the secondly it appears as an "intrapsychological achievement" (Helsinki). Author Kurt L. Kraus explains that Vygotsky's Cultural-Historical Activity Theory boils down to three elements: ontogeny, phylogeny, and sociocultural context (Kraus, 2008, p. 85).

What does this mean in terms that make sense to lay people? The physical limitations of body and brain development (ontogeny) prevent young people from understanding the world around them because cognitive development hasn't had time to evolve. A baby girl doesn't yet know enough language to understand Shakespeare, but she will, because "in the course of human evolution (phylogeny), receptive language skills…allow humans to understand complex, abstract language" (Kraus, 85).