Cognitive Development (Piaget And Vygotsky) Essay

complex in its entirety. During development, the most critical period is within the first 6 years of life; at the age of 7, our brain is nearly developed to the average adult size. During this time, myelination, synaptogenesis and synaptic pruning are occurring and contribute significantly to the development of the brain. If disruption occurs in brain development, it is possible that autism could be the ending result. Autism normally appears in the first 3 years of life. Although, it is still unknown as to what exactly causes these abnormalities. In Kathleen M. Galottis book, Cogitive Psychology: In and Out of the Laboratory, 2014. She asks how we come to obtain cognitive capacities, skills and strategies (Galotti, 2014, p. 321). Galotti focuses on 2 major theoretical approaches to cognitive development. The Stage and Nonstage theories are developmental theories that organize ways of explaining phenomena, including assumptions and predictions that are testable hypothesis (Galotti, 2014, p. 321). The Stage Theory that Galloti focuses on is Piagets Theory of Development, also known as the Piagetian Theory.

Vygotsky proposed that children’s development is affected by their culture and social interaction. He also suggested that children are not born with knowledge but they gain it through their social interactions with peers and adults; he does not rule out the importance of biological processes but proposes an interdependent relationship between biological development alongside social activity and cultural interaction.

By adopting the colonizers values and denying himself, the colonized will lose himself completely. In order to assimilate, he will tune out the frequency of the heart; denying his identity, his language, his culture, and his way of life. The colonized will need to “[hide] his past, his traditions and in fact all his origins” (122) in attempt to become an equal. Embracing these qualities and going as far as altering appearance will become internalized and leave the colonized separate from his body and alienated from himself. He will go against all that feeds his soul and will become completely torn, leading him to become eventually crippled. Memmi argues that assimilation will not work for the colonized because “he [will] never [cease] to be one of them at heart” (123). He does not believe that liberation can come from self-denial. Hypothetically, even if assimilation was in the best interest of the colonized, they would soon after “[meet] with the rejection of

This theory focuses solely on children’s cognitive development so that is both a strength and a weakness as it gets an in-depth understanding of children’s cognitive processes however it cannot be generalised to adults. Another strength of this theory is the fact that it can be applied practically within the real world, especially in regards to education as it means children can be taught based upon their developmental stage. It is extremely useful in that sense as it is nomothetic so it can be applied to larger population. The theory contains both continuous and discontinuous, it is discontinuous as it contains distinct hierarchal stages. It is good in one sense as it allows professionals to see if a child is meeting the stages and if they do not action can be taken. At the same time it can be disadvantageous as professionals, such as teachers may not push a child to reach their full cognitive capabilities as they have met the criteria for their age. At the time this was quite revolutionary as children were once considered “little adults” that only has a slightly less mental and developmental capacity. Therefore they may not have learnt as effective as they could, as they may have been taught above or below their capacity. However with that said it has been suggested that his stages of

When an infant arrives in the world they are helpless tiny humans who depend on adults for every need from love, to feeding them. It is amazing how these tiny babies grow into adults able to make decisions and become self-dependent. There are many theories about how children develop and what roles the environment plays, what people affect their lives and how events can shape their personalities. Some of these children have and easy life and some have a harder time making that journey to adulthood.

There are many theories of child development largely because many different people have studied the field for many years. Each theory has their different factors; biology, sociology, genetics, environment, and relationships are just a few of them. “Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous -- and how well I know it. ”! (Psalms 139:14).  One might ask the question: "If theories are so useful, why do we need so many?"  Having a multitude of theories allow us to see how children develop from a variety of

There are many different theories of development which we use to understand children’s behaviour, reactions and the way in which they learn.

“Piaget claimed that all organisms have an innate tendency to adapt to the environment.” Piaget also demonstrated the close relationship between organisation and adaptation (Miller, 2002). Piaget once said “Organisation is inseparable from adaptation: They are two complementary processes of a single mechanism...These two aspects of thought are in-dissociable: It is by adapting to things that thought organises itself and it is by organising itself that structures things” (Source: Miller, 2002). “Adaptation involves assimilation and accommodation. Assimilation is the process of fitting reality into ones current cognitive organisation[Schemas]... [and] Accommodation... refers to adjustments in cognitive organisation that result from the demands of reality”(Miller, 2002). Miller believed that accommodation happens because current structures that the mind already has in place have failed to understand or interpret a particular object or event in a satisfactory way. Assimilation and accommodation are very much closely related from birth to death (Miller,

The stages theory is open to criticism as they are too rigid and neglects individual differences such as memory span, motivation etc. Piaget also underestimated the age at which children could do things. This maybe due to his failure to distinguish between competence and performance. Piaget's studies tested performance and then he assumed that a child who failed simply lacked the underlying cognitive structures that he believed were needed to succeed on that task. Subsequent research suggests that a child may have these competencies earlier than Piaget suggested.

Piagetian theory of cognitive development includes four main stages. Sensorimotor stage is from birth to two years of age, preoperational stage is from ages two to seven, concrete operational stage is from seven to eleven years of age, and formal operational stage is from eleven years and on. During the preoperational, young children are able to think about

In the early 20th century many theories were put forward to help explain why and how children develop. A theorist who played a

To answer this question, Piaget's theory of development should be explained along with Vygotsky's theory and the connectionist theory of development, and then each should be compared with the others. Once this has been achieved the main similarities and differences will be summarized, and finally the areas of Piaget's theory that have not been undermined by other theories will be reiterated.

All children are unique as they learn, progress, develop at different rates and in a variety of ways. Nearly all theorists agree on the principles of children’s learning expansion in general and play a vital fragment of early childhood development. They all accept that cognitive learning is relatively systematic and takes place gradually at a variety of rates. Learning only occurs when experience causes a permanent change in an individual’s knowledge or behaviour (Weatherby-Fell, N. 2013). I am reviewing Burrus Federic Skinner’s behavioural theory and Jean Piaget cognitive development theory. This report style essay will provide an overview of the two theorists, a comparison between the two in relation to the image of the child, teaching, learning and development, and an analysis of how these two approaches align with the Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF). Subsequently, details of both theories will be discussed and explained to illuminate the differences and connections to how children learn. These two extremely well-known theorists’ approaches are stimulating, cause reflection upon learning methods and ensures thought provoking teaching.

For this paper I will be exploring Piaget's theory of cognitive development. Swiss Psychologist Jean Piaget, theorized that children progress through four key stages of cognitive development that change their understanding of the world. By observing his own children, Piaget came up with four different stages of intellectual development that included: the sensorimotor stage, which starts from birth to age two; the preoperational stage, starts from age two to about age seven; the concrete operational stage, starts from age seven to eleven; and final stage, the formal operational stage, which begins in adolescence and continues into adulthood. In this paper I will only be focusing on the

In the world of psychology, Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky are considered to be very prominent figures in the area of cognitive development. Both of these men considered themselves a constructivist, which entails a viewpoint that is concerned with the nature of knowledge. In their lifetime, both of them made contributions in the area of education and even after death, their theories still influence teaching methods. The purpose of this paper is to show some similarities as well as differences in the theories of Piaget and Vygotsky and what can be gained by having a better understanding of their theories.