Modern Sociocultural Theory

Question 1

What is social referencing?

Answer 1

The tendency of infants looking at the caregivers/adults’ facial expression and reaction before reacting under an unknown circumstance

Question 2

What are the three concepts of sociocultural theories

Answer 2

Shared intentionality
the ability of humans to collaborate with others to work towards a same goal/intention (including enjoyment).
Joint attention
the ability to just by exchanging gaze to understand what the other person is trying to convey
Scaffolding
A temporary framework that a MKO provides to a child for learning
Not only about the framework, but also the use of language, tone, questions etc

Question 3

Explain infants’ eye gazing ability

Answer 3

Infants have the ability to track the eye gazes of adults.
Infants tend to look at where adults are looking at, look back to the adults for social cues (e.g., facial expression) and understand how should they perceive to the object/behaviour
This is a how infants can join attention with adults, and learn through joint attention.

Question 4

How do Piaget and Vygotsky perceive language in learning

Answer 4

Piaget
Relatively unimportant. Learning is an individual process.
Vygotsky:
Important. As children learn through scaffolding and social interactions (e.g., joint attention), language is the most commonly used tool throughout social interactions. Children develop their cognitive abilities with language

Question 5

What is private speech?

Answer 5

At the age of around 4-6, children tend to develop speeches that are directed towards themselves, while imitating adults talking to them.
Private speech is used to self-regulate and stay focused when completing a task.
Older children sometimes use private speech when encountering difficult tasks. However, they are inaudible and internalised

Question 6

What do Piaget and Vygotsky think about private speech

Answer 6

Piaget
An evidence of children in their pre-operational phase, where they are still egocentric
Vygotsky
By mimicking the presence of adults talking to them, it helps them to navigate through complex tasks and stay focus. Also, language is a fundamental block for higher cognitive development (e.g., planning and reasoning)