Psychology (Vygotsky - Cognitive Development) Flashcards
What was Vygotsky view on cognitive development?
Proposed social development theory (that children develop through interaction and community of others.) Learning can lead to cognitive development and that this is culturally specific.
What are the 4 elemental functions and what did he say about them?
Memory, attention, perception and sensation (babies are born with these functions, however these can be combined to perform everyday problems such as mathematical problems. This transformation from the simple elementary functions to these complex combinations, is the result of experiences and culture.
Cognitive functions, even those carried out alone, are affected by the beliefs, values and tools of intellectual adaptation of the culture in which a person develops and therefore socio-culturally determined.
What is the Zone of Proximal Development?
Experts or more knowledgeable others are very important.
Children learn from problem solving experiences with others and the tutor may model behaviour or provide instructions for the child. All people with greater knowledge act as “experts / more knowledgeable others” to the child.
To begin with, the “expert” interacting with the child assumes most of the responsibility for guiding the problem solving activity, but gradually this responsibility transfers to the child as the child learns and becomes more skilled in the task and the more knowledgeable others withdraw their scaffolding.
What are the 3 stages of Proximal Development?
- There is things we can do on our own
- “Zone of proximal development” things we can do with the help of a peer, family member, technology, or the more “knowledgeable other”
- Last there is what’s beyond our reach
What did he say about how we develop language?
He established an explicit connection between inner speech and external speech. That the more we engage in social interactions, we develop our external speech that will develop our inner speech. Which means that the more we engage in social interactions, we develop thought itself - thus children who are not going through this stage can predominantly only think out loud.
The more knowledgeable-other transmits language to the child. Once this process is complete, inner and external speech become independent.
What are the LIMITATIONS
Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development describes the zone between what we can do on our own, and what we can do with the help of others. However, the “zone of proximal development” is an internal process which cannot be empirically tested or observed, making the theory less scientific.
More knowledgeable others can provide scaffolding to help a child to learn. Piaget however suggests that cognitive development is innate and that we all go through the same processes naturally, such as thinking patterns. Criticised for placing too much emphasis on the social environment
Mastering speech when learning a language comes through the interaction with others. Chomsky however argues that humans have an innate trait where we are predisposed to acquire linguistic skills, which suggests that there is an over emphasis on socialisation in Vygotsky’s theory.
What are the STRENGTHS?
A teacher or peer may demonstrate an intellectual concept to guide the child through learning a skill set. Vygotsky’s ZPD can be applied to educational contexts in order to help children learn intellectual concepts, therefore it shares validity.
His theory made an important contribution to developmental psychology as he emphasizes the importance of social interaction which Piaget lacks
