Jean Piaget And Lev Vygotsky

Cognitive psychology is a relatively modern approach based on human mental processes and how those processes affect a person’s feeling, thinking and behaviour. Two of the earliest influences to cognitive development were introduced in the mid 1900’s by psychologists Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky who both stressed the importance of mental processes, particularly in children and their development. During the early 1900’s, the behaviourist approach was the front-runner in explaining behaviour; cognitivism however gained credence as it sought to explain, scientifically, the mental processes taking place when confronted with stimuli. This was advanced further during the 1950’s with the development of the computer and the information processing theory,

Before his research, the common misconception was that children didn’t have the same capacity as adults to think. Piaget’s studies showed that children think entirely differently compared to adults and that their mental processes only develop through maturation and interaction with the environment. A key component to Piaget’s theory is schema, often referred to as the building blocks of knowledge. Piaget (1952) defined a schema as 'a cohesive, repeatable action sequence possessing component actions that are tightly interconnected and governed by a core meaning ' (Mcleod., 2015).He theorised that children are born with basic, innate schema already incorporated in their genetic code. As a child interacts with the environment, their schema develops becoming more complex or new schema is created furthering cognitive development. This furthering of development, Piaget described as assimilation and accommodation. When a child is presented with a new stimulus, a process of assimilation takes place wherein existing schema is recalled in order to deal with this new situation. If this new information does not fit with existing schema, a state of disequilibrium ensues forcing the existing schema to be changed or a new schema created, resulting in accommodation. When the child can accommodate most new stimuli a state of

2015). Another important criticism is Piaget’s nature approach; he failed to consider how cultural and social differences may effect cognitive development. Dasen (1994) cites studies he carried out in isolated parts of the central Australian desert using 8-14 year olds. He used the liquid conservation task as well as a task involving spatial awareness. He found that the ability to conserve came later in the aboriginal children, as opposed to between 5 and 7, with Piaget’s Swiss sample. However, he found that spatial awareness abilities developed earlier amongst the Aboriginal children. This demonstrated that cognitive development is not only dependent on maturation but on cultural factors too and that spatial awareness is crucial for nomadic groups of people (Mcleod,. 2015).
Samuel and Bryant (1984), although criticising Piaget on several key aspects, did agree that children could conserve number before they could conserve mass and volume tasks which supports Piaget’s ‘building blocks’. ** not sure where to