Within this essay, the author will explore and evaluate two theories of child/cognitive development. One method is known as Piaget’s theory of cognitive development which consists of schemas: assimilation, accommodation and adaption, Piaget’s stages of intellectual development. Characteristics of these stages, including object permanence, conservation, egocentrism and class inclusion. Piaget’ research, including the three mountains experiment and conservation experiments will also be included.
Alternative approaches to children’s cognition comprise of Vygotsky and cognitive development within a social and cultural context, Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development and Scaffolding, a guided participation in sociocultural activities. Piaget described children as ‘mini-scientists’ who learn from their environment. He thought that children should be given the materials and environment to explore for themselves. He called this ‘discovery learning’ and said this was the best way for children to learn. Using the term schemas to describe the mental structures we have.
He claimed these schemas hold the knowledge we have about objects, events and ways of doing things. Schemas are therefore pockets of knowledge and simply, are ways of thinking about the world. Previously stated, Piaget believed that children learn best by discovering things for themselves. They do this through the process of assimilation and accommodation, involving disequilibrium and equilibrium. Assimilation is the process used when the child is able to use existing schemas to understand new information.Accommodation is the process necessary when existing schemas have to be modified or new schemas created in order to understand new information.
Equilibrium is the feeling of mental balance because the world is as you expected and you can use the schema you already have to understand new information – assimilation. Disequilibrium is feeling confused because new information does not fit with your way of thinking, driving you to change your schema or create a new one – accommodation. As a result of continually modifying schemas, children are able to cope with their environment, this is called adaption.A general limitation to the cognitive approach and Piaget’s schema theory is that it happens in the mind and therefore can be neither proven, nor disproven. Discovery learning can also be criticised as it underestimates the role of adults helping a child to learn new skills. However discovery learning has had an enormous influence on primary education and allows a child to become self-sufficient.
Piaget believed that development takes place when the child is cognitively ready known as the ‘readiness approach’.He also believed that cognitive development takes place in four stages. Stage one is known as the sensori-motor stage which occurs between the ages of zero to two years. The main characteristic of the sensori-motor stage is object permanence. This is the ability to realise that something still exsists even when it can no longer be seen.
Before the child develops this skill it is a case of out of sight, out of mind. Stage two of a child’s cognitive development was named the Pre-Operational Stage and occurs between the ages of two to seven years.Characteristics of this stage include; Ego-centrism, not being able to do conservation or class inclusion tasks. Ego-centrism is where one is not able to see things from another person’s perspective and realise that they have different thoughts and feelings from you. This is because the child believes that everybody sees the world the same way that they do. Conducting an experiment to investigate the age at which children are no longer ego-centric.
Children aged between four and seven were shown a model of three mountains.A doll was placed at a different view point and the child was asked to look at ten photographs and choose the correct image showing what the doll could see. He concluded that children under the age of seven are ego-centric because they couldn’t see things from the doll’s point of view. At seven, however, they move into the Concrete Operations Stage and can see things from the doll’s perspective.
Not being able to do conservation tasks means not being able to realise that something can look different but still be the same.Conducting an experiment to investigate when children are no longer pre-operational he asked a selection of children aged between two and seven to observe two containers holding a blue liquid. He then poured one liquid into a container that was taller and thinner than the last and asked the children if the liquid differed between the two containers. The results showed that children aged seven said they were equal in liquid, however children under seven believed that there was more liquid in the taller thin glass.Children in this stage are also not able to do class inclusion tasks which means that children in the pre-operational stage do not understand that sub-categories of something are related to an overall category that contains all of the sub-categories.
Stage three, known as the Concrete Operations Stage occurs in children aged between seven and eleven. Believing that children in this stage can conserve as they are able to decentre, meaning that they are able to focus on more than one aspect of the situation.They can also conserve as they can use reversibility. This means that they are able to return mentally to what something looked like before it got changed. A strength of Piaget’s research is that he used experiments and therefore had high control of variables and it is also replicable. A limitation to Piaget’s work is that through the use of experiments and the fact that he used mainly his own children to conduct his experiments, his work has a low ecological validity.
Therefore it is unwise to generalise to the wider population.The final stage to Piaget’s cognitive development research is known as the Formal Operational Stage, occurring in children aged eleven plus. In this stage the child is now able to imagine things that they have not yet experienced. E.
g. They will be able to think hypothetically. Problems are approached in a systematic and organised way. For example, if you told a child in the formal operation stage that you were thinking about something in your garden, they would use a system to help them work out what it was.“Piaget believed that the change from heteronomous to autonomous morality occurred because of the shift at about seven from egocentric to operational thought.
This suggests that cognitive development is necessary for moral development, but, since the latter lags at least two years behind the former, it cannot be sufficient. ”(Gross 2010 p550) An alternative approach to children’ cognition can be seen by Vygotsky and his cognitive development within a social and cultural context. Vygotsky believed that a child’s cogitative development is affected by the social world and the culture in which he or she lives.Piaget believed that children were ‘mini-scientists’ who learnt for themselves through interaction with the environment. Vygotsky, however, referred to children as ‘mini-apprentices’ because he believed that children learn best with the help and support of more experienced peers or of adults.
This can take the form of, for example, demonstration, instruction, praise and encouragement. This approach was later termed Scaffolding. It is known as scaffolding because when the child has developed a particular skill, then this support can be gradually removed.Scaffolding of cultural traditions and practices is known as guided participation in socio-cultural activity. Adults model the cultural activity and then guide the child as he/she attempts to carry it out. The child will then use the knowledge gained from this to develop his/her own way of doing said activity.
A Study was conducted by Chris and Greenfield (1982) to investigate the use of scaffolding in teaching children to weave. They observed the teaching of weaving in a tribe in Mexico. The weaving process in this tribe involves six separate steps which children need to be taught.The researchers found that these steps were taught with scaffolding as a child learnt a new step the adult helped a lot but as the child’s skill increased, the adult reduced their help.
An evaluation of the experiment shows that scaffolding is evidence for Vygotsky’s theory and makes the theory more valid. However, a small sample was used so generalisation to the wider population cannot occur. It also only shows development of a specific skill and not of cognitive development in general. Vygotsky believed that the use of scaffolding can help a child to expand the Zone of Proximal Development.
The ZPD can be defined as the gap between what a child can achieve unaided and what he/she can achieve with the help and support of an adult or more experienced peer. Vygotsky’s view is different to Piaget’s in relation to cognitive development. Vygotsky believed that language is important for cognitive development whereas Piaget believed that cognitive development is important for language development. Evidence to support Vygotsky’s view that language is important for cognitive development comes from a study by Behrend et al (1992).
He found that children who used the most inner speech (talking to themselves) tended to perform problem solving tasks better than children who used less inner speech. This shows that language is aiding cognitive development. However, it is difficult to measure how much inner speech is being used. Another limitation is that correlation studies do not establish cause and effect.
Vygotsky’s ideas have had an influence on education as teachers use scaffolding to provide demonstration, instruction, praise and encouragement and a gradual removal of support to help children learn a new skill.Conversely, children who only learn through scaffolding might not be able to problem solve for themselves. This is because they have come to rely on the instruction of others. As well as this, adults may confuse children by providing different advice. They could also make topics difficult for the child to understand by giving vague answers when asked about topics like death.
In conclusion Piaget believed that children learn through interaction with their environment which conflicted with Vygotsky’s approach which states that children learn with the help and support of others.Piaget was a strong believer that children learn when they are cognitively ready and that cognitive development happens at the same time and in the same order which ever culture the child is brought up in. He also deemed that cognitive development is important for language development. Conversely, Vygotsky was unchanged in his beliefs proposing that children learn new skills through a process known as scaffolding. Acquainted with the certainty that cognitive skills needed within a certain culture determine when particular abilities develop and that language development is important for cognitive development.
