Piaget and Vygotsky's Theories

Three Major Approaches to Child Development

Jean Piaget

social and cognitive developments are adaptive and constructive and stage-like

Lev Vygotsky

socail and cognitive developments are culturally driven

Core Domain of Knowledge

core domains of knowledge are biologically prepared

Piaget

Cognitive Development is Constructive and Adaptive

children build and refines schemas in interaction with their physical and social world (little scientists)

progress is through assimilation of new experiences to existing schemas

and accommodation of schemas when current ways of thinking don't explain enough

when accommodation outstrips assimilation there is a state of cognitive disequilibrium

this leads to major reorganizations of thinking and new ways or reasoning about the world.

Piaget calls this process equilibration and it underlies the  stage-like nature of cognitive development 

Piaget

About the Four Stages

each stage is described by the characteristic types of schemas and cognitive operations the child uses in that stage

the order of the stages is invariant and no stage can be skipped

the stages are universal and so rooted in the biology of our species and driven by both maturation and  experience

individual differences in genetic and environmental factors influence the speed at which a child moves through the stages but not the sequence of stages

Piaget

The Four Stages of Cognitive Development

birth to 2 yrs

sensorimotor stage

2 to 6 yrs

preoperational stage

7 to 11 yrs 

concrete operational stage

12 to adult

formal operational stage

Piaget

Sensorimotor Stage

birth to 2 yrs

experiences the world through senses and actions

object permanence and mental representation emerge at end of stage

Piaget

Preoperational Stage

2 to 6 yrs

fails to conserve amounts of stuff

egocentrism

represents things with concepts and images

perceptual appearance of events dominates over logical reasoning (no logical operations)

one dimension of focus at a time

Piaget

Concrete Operational Stage

7 to 11 yrs

conservation of physical properties of stuff.

thinks logically and reversibly about concrete events

performs basic arithmetic operations

Piaget

Formal Operational Stage

12 to adult

abstract deductive reasoning

hypothetical "if-then" reasoning

abstract reasoning

thinking about thinking

Piaget's Experiment

Lack of Representation

the train in the tunnel

infants do not track the movement of the train in the tunnel. they are happy to see the train again, but are not surprised if it changes color or shape.

Piaget's Experiment

Object Permanece 

at age 8 months

(object permanence: understanding that objects have substance, maintain their identity when they change location, continue to exist when out of sight)

blue monkey and paper

an infant younger than 8 months of age does not search for an object that has been removed from sight.

Piaget's Experiment

Object Permanence

at age 1 year

object in a whole, paper covering

after an infant has successfully searched for an object hidden in one location, the object is then hidden in a new location while the infant watches.

the infant will search for the object where it was previously found

Piaget's Experiemnt

Conservation of Number

row of blocks

one row is longer than the other, the infant will say that it has a larger number of objects, even though the objects are only spread out

Piaget's Experiment

Conservation of Liquid

three glasses of juice

two glasses filled with the same amount of juice, one glass poured into a glass of a different shape, the infant assumes that the quantity of liquid has changed.

(preoperational children focus on only one dimension at a time-- e.g. height)

Piaget's Experiment

Conservation of Mass

squishing playdough

two balls of playdough of the same size, one is squished; the infant assumes that the quantity of playdough has changed

(preoperational children focus on only one demension at a time-- e.g. height)

Piaget's Experiment

Egocentrism

the three mountain problem

child allowed to view diorama from all sides. seated on one side; doll on opposite side. shown pictures from various perspectives and asked to identify how things would look to doll.

almost always chose view corresponding to their own point of view

Piaget

Challenges to Piagetian Theory

cognitive development is embedded in a cultural context and variation in those contexts suggest:

a stronger role for cultural practices

less universality in development

= Vygotsky's social/cultural theory of development

Particular biologically important concepts and types of knowledge emerge early in infancy, suggesting:

stronger innate constraints on development

more domain-specific and earlier development than Piaget proposed

= Core Domain Knoweldge

Vygotsky

Vygotsky's Social/ Cultural Theory of Development

all higher cognitive processes develop out of social interaction

caregivers or more skilled peers provide social support for learning new skills by scaffolding 

children take the language of social interactions and internalize it as inner speech and use it to organize their own thinking and behavior.

Vygotsky

Key Concepts in Vygotsky's Theory

Scaffolding or Apprenticeship

The Zone of Proximal Development

Inner Speech

Key Concepts in Vygotsky's Theory

Scaffolding

Key Concepts in Vygotsky's Theory

The Zone of Proximal Development

Key Concepts in Vygotsky's Theory

Inner Speech

Core Domain Knowledge

Core Domains

core domains of knowledge with biological significance for which children are innately prepared, so learning is more rapid and special purpose in those domains

physical properties of objects

basic number concepts

psychological knowledge

language

Core Domain Knoweldge

Experiment Techniques

Core Domain Knowledge Experiments

Object Permanence

at age 3 months

screen and red block test

infants 3 months old dishabituated when a screen appeared to pass through the place where a box had been 

seems to indicate reasoning about an impossible event and an understanding of object existence even when the object is obscured

Core Domain Knowledge Experiments

Object Continuity and Occlusion

at age 6 months

box and rod experiment

infants are surprised by the sight of two objects moving parallel to each other but not by one continuous object

Core Domain Knowledge

Basic Number Understanding

at age 6 months

sound and slide experiment

by 6 months of age infants reliably look at the array of objects that match the number of drum beats= "cross-modality matching" 

Core Domain Knowledge

Infant Aritmentic

at age 4 months

mickey mouse in a diorama 

infants >4 months looked longer at the end display when there was only one doll, suggesting that they had mentally calculated the number of dolls that ought to be behind the screen

Core Domain Knowledge Experiments

Inferring Human Intentions 1

at age 9 months

arm reaching for a ball

infants are habituated to an arm that grabs the ball. then the position of the ball and teddy are switched.

they are then shown either an arm that reaches for the teddy where the ball used to be, or reaches for the ball where the teddy used to be.

Core Domain Knowledge Experiments

Inferring Human Intentions 2

at age 9 months

pole reaching for a ball

when the arm is replaced by a pole with a sponge on the end, the infants don't show any expectation of what the pole "wants."

they expect it to go to the same place each time.

Controversy Between Piagetians and Core Knowledge Theorists

piaget's tasks require an action to be mobilized or a verbal judgement to be made

violation of expectancy experiments with infants just measure what captures the infant's attention

do these differences in required response reflect differences in the type for representation or the articulation of the child's representation of the world?