Social and environmental variables affect cognitive development. Cognitive development focuses on

Vygotsky and Piaget theories can apply to an Early Childhood classroom simply because most of their theories will benefit the teachers to use in their classroom. Vygotsky’s scaffolding is when teacher to show guidance towards their students so the students can have the ability to comprehend and think on their own. Solving problems and solution is a boundless to use in the classroom especially if the teachers need and want the children to prepare themselves for the real world. Piaget’s theory has the four stages of Cognitive ability. Thus it will benefit the teacher to use when they are observing the child thinking abilities with proper use of the assessment and difference of the child’s age. For an example if the teacher is teaching two years old she would want to look for make believe play, when a child likes to pretend they are a character from movie or book this stage is call Preoperational Stage. Teachers should observe the activities when the child is pretending to be Queen Elsa or Princess Anna.

Piaget, Vygotsky, and Erikson are very well known men for their different theories of development. Although each of them believe different things about how a child develops, I believe that a child can go through all of these theories and benefit from them. I also understand that not everyone is the same, and what might be true for someone could be different for someone else. In my own personal experience, I believe I went through and I’m going through all these different stages in theories throughout my life. I also work at a daycare and we use aspects from each of these theories when going about teaching children. The three different theories include: Piaget’s theory of cognitive development, Vygotsky;s sociocultural theory of

Vygotsky may have overplayed importance on social influences because he suggests that child’s cognitive development occurs through social interactions, for example children do internalisation of problem solving via mutual interactions. However, if social learning is the essence of cognitive development then learning would be a lot faster than it is. Thus Vygotsky ignores the biological aspects that aid or restricts the cognitive development such as the development of brain and maturation. Therefore Piaget’s theory of cognitive development is different to

As a problem presents itself, children will verbally work through the steps to solve it. This ‘private speech’ is a vital part to cognitive development, according to Vygotsky. This private speech gradually progresses into thinking as children become more proficient. He was also a proponent for scaffolding which is a process in which a new task is given and direct instruction is given then gradually taken away as the child learns. Both psychologists believed that children learn and develop through action but in different ways; Piaget felt it was through personal, self action while Vygotsky felt is was through social interaction, internalization and vocalization. Vygotsky and Piaget realized that social factors play a part in cognitive development but in different ways; According Piaget, self processing within a child leads to social processing while Vygotsky felt the opposite- social processing leads to self processing. Lastly, both came to the conclusion that by internalizing information, children transform it into knowledge and mental growth.

Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky both agree and disagree in the area of the Nature/Development of Intelligence. Piaget and Vygotsky agree on the idea of constructivism, the certainty that cognitive development happens by accumulation to and building from what is previously recognized and learned. Piaget was a trivial constructivist, he believed that individuals acquire knowledge by interacting with their environment and building on their knowledge and understanding of their environment. On the other hand, Lev Vygotsky was a social constructivist, believing individuals acquire knowledge through social interaction and learning from others. They also both agree that the restrictions of intellectual growth are defined by social interactions. Individuals acquire knowledge from interactions that they have already been exposed to and what other people can teach them, whether if it other children that are older than they are, adults in the life, or teachers. Jean Piaget believed that individuals acquire their knowledge by interacting in their environment, and it comes as a direct outcome of the individual’s actions on to their environment. Piaget believed that individuals must learn before they develop (Educational Psychology). According to Jean Piaget’s theory, the order of acquiring knowledge is an individual acts upon their environment, learning from the consequences of their actions, and then developing knowledge and understanding of

Jean Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development was one of the first steps in understanding how children become who they are as adults. In early childhood, children begin to understand symbols and representations (Berk, 2014, p. 227). Their learning shifts from sensing the world as in the sensorimotor stage to trying to find commonalities like symbols. According to Berk (2014), Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory focused on “social context of cognitive development” (p. 234). Vygotsky incorporated social context and social interactions into childhood development; in other words, who, how, and what children interact with in their everyday social environment contributes to their mental and emotional development. When it comes to both of these cognitive theories, there are many similarities and differences between Piaget and Vygotsky.

B. Blake & T. Pope. (2008). Developmental Psychology: Incorporating Piaget’s and Vygotsky’s Theories in. Journal of Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives in Education, Vol. 1, No 1,, 59-67. Retrieved from http://jcpe.wmwikis.net/file/view/blake.pdf

Unlike Piaget, who was of an academic background and didn’t apply his theories. Never the less, they both theories influenced education and empahsied the importance of assessment however Vygotsky wanted the observation of children and their abilities to be as valied as test scores.

Piaget and Vygotsky both believed that young children actively learn from their hands-on, day-to-day experiences. Jean Piaget portrayed children as "little scientists" who go about actively constructing their understanding of the world. His theories hold the essence of developmentally appropriate curriculum since Piaget believed that children undergo cognitive development in a stage-based manner, such that a very young child would not think about things the same way that an adult might. He referred to the knowledge and the manner in which the knowledge is gained as a schema. In order to build on the cognitive stages that children experience, informal learning opportunities, formal instructional sessions, and the utilized curriculum must all dovetail with a child's current cognitive stage so that assimilation of the new knowledge may occur. Working with what the child knows and experiences, parents and teachers create bridges to the next cognitive stage that are characterized by the child's accommodation. Piaget argued that optimal learning took place in this manner and that adults should avoid thinking that they can accelerate a child's development through the age-based, maturity-referenced stages. This is because a child works toward establishing an equilibrium between the assimilation and application of new knowledge and changing their behavior to accommodate their newly adopted schemas.

4. I relate most with cognitive theories of development. Piaget provides the foundation by explaining the distinct stages of development. His insights allow teachers and parents to have a basis of what children are capable of during each stage. If the child drastically strays from these stages, it allows the caring adults to take action to help the child to reach the appropriate stage. With an understanding of these stages, the theories of Vygotsky can then be successfully utilized. Vygotsky stresses that with the

The essay is going to introduce short overviews of Piaget (1926) and Vygotsky’s (1978) theories to indicate their different approaches when considering cognitive development. Piaget (1926) developed a constructivist theory which is the basis for the other cognitive development theories that followed. He proposed the definition of schema which refers to children’s construction of shaping their thought and actions through the set of cognitive processes as assimilation, disequilibriums and accommodation. When encountering new experiences, children try to interpret them in terms of known cognitive schemas. In case of failing, they need to adjust their interpretation to the reality (Schaffter & Kipp,8th ed). Based on his assumptions, Piaget (1926) proposed that child as a lone individual progress through four main stages of cognitive development. On the other hand, Vygotsky (1978) presented sociocultural theory. Vygotsky (1978) concentrated on the social interaction between child and adult considering

Cognition is the process involved in thinking and mental activity, such as attention, memory and problem solving. Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky both have very different yet similar views about the child and tenets within their theoretical perspectives. While Piaget sees children as upcoming scientists, many discoveries found were attained at each of his four stages. Vygotsky views the childas competent who is capable and the childs development is led by learning. Though Vygotsky puts huge emphasis on the sociocultural aspects of learning, both Piaget and Vygotsky consider sociocultural theory in their own perspectives. However they were distinguished by various types of thinking which led to reveal a child’s reason for doing certain things at

Piaget *Missing Works Cited* Piaget work has received world wide acclaim and recognition , as well as having a positive impact in areas such as education and social curricula. Though he had made an impact on understanding of the child cognitive development , his theory of cognitive development has suffered a great deal of critics that it neglects the social nature of human development.(Hook, Watts and Cockroft ,2002).So the following essay will discuss on whether this critic is valid or not based on detail discussion of Piaget theory. The theory of Vygotsky shall also be discussed to prove that indeed social factors play a role .

Piaget’s theory also allowed us a way to accept and understand that children's cognitive behavior is intrinsically motivated. Social and other reinforcements do influence children's cognitive explorations but children learn because of the way they are built. In Piaget’s mind cognitive adapts to the environment through assimilation. Also accommodation is a type of biological adaptation (Flavell, 1996). According to Piaget in order to characterize cognitive development in humans we need to understand co-present in cognitive activity which is cognitive structure (Flavell, 1996). Piaget was the first psychologist to try explaining describing cognitive development. His argument is that intellectual advances are made through the equilibration process that has three steps: the first step is for the cognitive equilibrium to de at a low development level; then, cognitive disequilibrium has to be induced by discrepant or inassimilable phenomena and lastly cognitive equilibration has to be at a higher developmental level.

According to Vygotsky believed that the development of an individual depend on the social factors, that means people develop according the social environment they are exposed and the things they interact with during their early stages in life (Kozulin, 2003). The argument here is that the learning and cognitive development is dependent on the social interactions that children go through and during their early stages, that is proximal zone and the environment have major role in children development. Piaget on the other hand, argues the cognitive development in independent of any external environment and aligns to the children development, therefore claims that children