Child developmental psychologists Jean Piaget vs Lev Vygotsky.

The focus is on comparing the differences between children ages 5–6 and 10-11 to understand how child development in thinking and relating to others contributes to the classroom environment. 

They compare and contrast the child developmental process by two psychologists, one Jean Piaget and the other Lev Vygotsky, by understanding the ability to think, reason, plan, and decide as part of their education, whether formal education in schooling or informal learning, which occurs as children interact with one another or the surroundings environment that may impact decision-making or problem-solving. 

The most influential psychologist in this field would be Piaget, who proposed that cognitive development from infant to young adult occurs in four universal and consecutive stages: sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operations, and formal operations. 

The central topic of discussion is examining the preoperational stage (2-7 years) and the concrete operational stage (7-11 years). In the preoperational stage, educators emphasise that children develop the ability to hold pictures and sounds in their minds as memories and thoughts, referring to this as representing the world rather than experiencing it as it occurs. 

At this stage, children engage in collective monologues, in which each child talks but does not interact with the other children. Another critical aspect of the preoperational stage is gaining the skill of conservation. Children understand that the amount of something remains the same even if its appearance changes. For example, in the Piagetian conservation problem, most children choose Tumble C because it has the most liquid, even though they have watched it poured into it. The volume of liquid moved between two tumbles overwhelms them.

Children learn best through hands-on discovery while working with tangible objects in concrete operational stages. According to Piaget and Inhelder (1974), the child’s flexibility in creating mental representations increases, although the type of object or material tested can still influence it. 

The comparison is from preoperational children who can sort objects into groups such as colours and shapes. The concrete operational stage is where a child has developed the ability to arrange items into sub-groupings. If the child knows what daffodils are, they can distinguish them from other flowers.

Based on this developmental stage model, the child must be able to move onto a more advanced stage. Social environment impact on a child can not be ignored, such as the case example of Genie, who was neglected and put into total isolation by her family until she was rescued by social service at 13 to lack the developed ability to speak and despite the committed care and education could not develop full language abilities, additional challenges such as trauma or abuse can impede the child’s development. 

Vygotsky believes that key figures in a child’s life support and shape their development. The child may become accustomed to multiple statistics in their life, the key figures being variable in position, such as parents, families and caregivers, including authority figures such as community leaders and teachers. Based on cognitive tasks, Vygotsky believed that any task or ability could broken into three levels

1. what the child can already do,

2. what the child has the potential to do, and

3. what is too hard for the child to do.

Vygotsky argued that guided support from those who had already reached the next stage of development helped children stretch their abilities.

Vygotsky measured proximal development as: “The distance between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through independent problem solving under adult or in collaboration with more capable peers.” Vygotsky (1978).

The three zones of proximal development:

1. Child’s current achievement

2. Zone of proximal development

3. Beyond reach at present

This theory indicates that students learn from social interactions and their culture, which is much different from Piaget’s theory, which states that children act on their environment to learn. The skilled peer or adult’s role is to assist in extending the child with guidance to go beyond their current ability level. An example taken from the classroom is if the child is learning basic number skills, they may already count. The addition might be within their zone of proximal development so that they can achieve it with guided support.

Moving onto individualised thinking, with the observation and support of the parent, empathised when the parent used a directive approach vs. an elaborative approach. The findings demonstrated that elaborative comments significantly positively impacted the child’s performance, which was not seen when directive comments were used (Bibok et al., 2009). The child receiving help through an elaborate process will utilise better strategies in the future should a similar problem arise. 

Wood, Bruner, and Ross (1976) coined the term scaffolding. It describes the guidance and support required to stretch the developmental process so that a child can reach a potential where scaffolding is no longer needed and proximal zones can be reached. 

Language development is a significant principle of Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory, as people’s language indicates their cultural beliefs and value systems. Children learn language much the same way that they learn cognitive skills. Another aspect of language development is self-talk. Children tend to use guided actions to aid in thinking. While Piaget may view this speech as immature, Vygotsky understood the importance of self-directed speech. 

Piaget and Vygotsky differed in their approaches to discovery learning. Piaget advocated less teaching intervention, while Vygotsky promoted guided learning from teachers or peers. 

Guided discovery involves the teacher asking intriguing questions and having the children discover the answers through reasoning. The children are engaged but still receive assistance from a more knowledgeable source. 

Summary

Both Piaget and Vygotsky provide educators with essential views on cognitive development. 

Piaget proposed that children progress through the stages of cognitive development through maturation discovery methods, whereas Vygotsky’s theory stressed the importance of culture and language in one’s mental development.

Respectfully, both psychologists have contributed to the field of child cognitive development. 

While they differ in some distinctive approaches to cognitive development theory, both offer reasonable approaches to teaching how children’s thinking processes develop into adulthood.

Akhtar, (SAC Dip), Lead Counselling Psychologist. 

www.akhtarcounselling.co.uk