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Compare And Contrast Piaget And Lev Vygotsky

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In my essay I am going to talk about two human development theorists, Lev Vygotsky and Jean Piaget, including their background and theories. I will also make links between each of their theories and infants', toddlers', and young children's learning and development, safety and nutrition, health and wellbeing, and learning environment. During this, I will be considering political factors.

Lev Vygotsky
Lev Vygotsky is an extremely influential human development theorist. Vygotsky was born in Western Russia in 1896, however due to a Russian revolution, his ideas were not heard until later in his life and after his death in 1934. He had a holistic approach and believed strongly in social interactions, and that a person's development is affected …show more content…

Piaget's theory is more scientific based. He believed that human development was biologically driven. Piaget developed a stages and ages theory, which includes 4 stages. These are the sensorimotor stage, preoperational stage, concrete operational stage, and the formal operational stage. The two stages that are relevant to young children are the sensorimotor stage and the preoperational stage. The sensorimotor stage is for the first two years of a child's life. In this stage, he believes that children's knowledge is developed through their senses (Pound, 2011). The preoperational stage is from those aged two to around six. In this stage, Piaget said that young children begin to use symbolic logic to understand things like their environment. They can understand that one thing may stand for something other than itself, and their growing imagination helps them understand that (McLeod, 2015). Alongside his four stages are assimilation and accommodation. Schemas are defined by Piaget (1952, p. 7) as "a cohesive, repeatable action sequence possessing component actions that are tightly interconnected and governed by a core meaning." In these processes, schemas are used and adapted to deal with new objects. Assimilation is when a new object is seen, and a previous schema is used to deal with that new object. Accommodation is when it does not fit into that existing schema, so the schema is adapted or changed …show more content…

Allowing them to learn about how to look after themselves is extremely important and will support them in developing skills for later life. Younger children tend to place most things in their mouths, especially if they are under two and in what Piaget called the sensorimotor stage (Pound, 2011). This is part of their learning; however, teachers must encourage them about what is clean and what is not. Teachers must help and guide their children to learn about and care for themselves. By the teacher aiding the student, it is seen as scaffolding so also relates to Vygotsky's model. The teacher has an important role in young children's lives by teaching them about their health and wellbeing, which helps them to be able to know about it without

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