Cognitive Development: Vygotsky Flashcards
What are Vygotsky’s key points?
All cognitive development takes place in a social context. Also takes place with cultural tools - these change the way we learn, interact with the world etc. When Vygotsky talks about tools, also means language as a tool (allows us to think differently about things). Vygotsky thought language was central to learning. Knowledge is not symmetric: guided participation and scaffolding. Language guides thinking & acting: inner speech & dialogue (can externalising thinking as language via an internal dialogue, allowing individuals to work through difficult problems as it inhibits immediate action).
What are Vygotsky’s viewpoints on socio-cultural contexts?
Huge variation in how many adults supervise a child, how they eat etc. The way children develop an understanding on the way to behave are through guided participation, e.g. participating in their parent feeding. Piaget though that culture didn’t really influence development, Vygotsky did.
How did Vygotsky think social interaction drives development?
Vygotsky says when children learn they do not learn in isolation but learn at a social level - only later on are they able to perform those interactions individually. First learn inter psychological (learn with the support of another person), and after learn intrapsychological (have internal knowledge to be able to perform task individually).
What is the important of reading comprehension?
When children learn to read, have to learn to decode and to comprehend. 10-15% of children have good deciding by poor comprehension.
What are problems of poor comprehenders?
Working memory (storage and concurrent processing of information), making inferences, language awareness (metalinguistic skill = thinking about language).
What is language awareness?
Tunmer & Bowey (1984) cognitive control to ‘reflect upon and manipulate structural features of language’. Initial focus on meaning, shift to focus on form (phonics) when learning to read, then back to meaning. The ability to think about the language you are using.
How can language ambiguity and metalinguistic awareness be tested?
Joke riddles - have to think about the different inferences in the joke question (uses compound nouns). Language ambiguity highlights metalinguistic awareness.
What are different features of language?
- Phonological = sound
- Lexical = word meaning
- Word compound = phrase structure
- Syntactic = sentence structure
- Metalinguistic = talk about language
- Pragmatic = common-sense assumptions.
What is Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development?
Vygotsky distinguished between what an individual could do on their own and what they could do with support. Support may be people with higher amount of knowledge, have tools e.g. technology and cultural structures. Zone of proximal development = what can do with support. Developed by Bruner and Wood - concept of scaffolding: gradually take away support as child shows increasing independence and confidence: inter psychological. In the end get intrapsychological.
How can we see scaffolding through peer discussion?
Being explicit about role of language ambiguity, different interpretations embodied by different agents, reaching shared understanding (intersubjectivity), exposure to superior understanding, positive emotional context etc. Motivation: peer pressure to ‘get it’.
What are levels of reading comprehension in autism spectrum conditions?
Some strengths in reading accuracy, difficulty in reading comprehension, difficulty in distinguishing jokes and lies, difficulties in social interaction, difficulties in peer interaction.
How could parents scaffold children’s understanding of causes of emotion?
Child with typical language: ask what the child can see in e.g. a picture.
Child with language impairment: ask continuous questions regarding the situation, involving what is happening, how the child feels, how others feel, why they think it is happening etc.
What were Vygotsky’s views on education?
Language as a social tool to support complex abstract (meta) thinking. Partners with different levels of skill. Inter to intra psychological (explaining to other helps you understand). Education relevance: understanding mechanisms of group work.
