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Essay / Comparison and critical evaluation of Piaget and Vygotsky
Table of contentsIntroductionComparison of points of viewArgumentsConclusionReferencesIntroductionChild cognitive development is an area of study in psychology focused on the development of the child in terms of his or her processing abilities information, problem solving, learning knowledge and understanding the world. The result of the study on the cognitive development of the child is recognized as an important reference and direction for society, educator and parents in order to help children grow as expected and integrate into the world. Company. There are two main academic views regarding child cognitive development, one on maturation developed by Jean Piaget and the other on socialization theory by Lev Vygotsky. This article will review the two theories comparing their differences and similarities. Then I will critically evaluate them and conclusions will be drawn to determine which one is best able to account for this phenomenon. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”?Get the original essayComparison of ViewpointsPiaget is considered the first to carry out a systematic study of cognitive development. His main contribution is stage theory, in which he separates life from birth to adult maturation into four stages: the sensorimotor stage, the preoperational stage, the concrete operational stage, and the formal operational stage (Hayslip, 2012). He believes that a child can learn through active self-discovery and that cognitive development is driven by a child's biologically inherent tendency to maintain balance between their existing patterns and their new environment. In this case, he states that a child will not learn until he or she has reached biological maturity, that is, the right stage (Piaget, 1985). In contrast, Vygotsky considers social interaction as the main driver of cognitive development, which is, however, treated as an important factor. but not a crucial factor by Piaget. With Vygotsky's theory, adults play an important role because children can learn through instruction and guidance. Compared to Piaget, Vygotsky believed that development could be accelerated with correct scaffolding in the zone of proximal development (Yasnitsky, 2018). Besides identifying different main factors in terms of developmental processes, as summarized by Duncan (1995), according to which Piagetian and Vygotskian paradigms also differ significantly in the broad patterns of human ontogeny. The two theories offer different explanations for the phenomenon of decline in egocentric speech: for Piaget, egocentric speech was speech in the process of being socialized while Vygotsky thinks that it was an original social phenomenon before being gradually internalized. The underlying different views on the main factor also lead to a different relative importance of adults' influences compared to those of their peers. Piaget believes that peers play a more important role in terms of imbalance of the internal environment, as children will view adults as categorically different individuals, while Vygotsky considers that it is the adult who leads and advances the child. Despite the difference, there are still similarities between Piagetian and Vygotskian. For example, both agree that learning is gradual for children and that new knowledge becomes more complex as they grow, both recognize that nature (maturation of the brain and body) and nurture (interaction social,culture, etc.) are essential and coexist in learning and development, although their relative importance is considered in different ways (Taylor, 2019).ArgumentsThe growing emphasis on education globally indicates that Vygotsky's theories are widely adopted. It is less plausible that social and adult interactions are treated solely as extrinsic factors. In fact, they play an important role in the child's mental development and should be included in the cognitive model. First, Vygotsky believes that cognitive development varies across cultures, while Piaget believes it should be universal (Duncan, 1995). As different personalities and psychological characteristics are found in children from different countries, this suggests that culture influences certain parental cognitions and practices, and consequently, the child's mental health from a very early stage, thus affecting the establishing beliefs, values, and future relationships (Bornstein, 2013). A more in-depth study by Super and Harness (1986) examines the substantial influences of three major cultural aspects 1) the general physical and social context, 2) child care customs, and 3) the psychological conditions of the caregiver on the development of a child. Second, their different emphasis on adult and peer roles suggests that Piaget would agree that the child will learn more through interaction with peers, while Vygotsky would argue the opposite. Although it is accepted that interactions with peers are an important area in which the foundations of future relationships are established, a recent study reveals that children from the age of 3 are more engaged in selective learning with adults than their peers, suggesting that the child could potentially learn more from the interactions. with adult educators rather than with their peers (Rakoczy, Katharina, Warneken, & Tomasello, 2010). However, there are still examples that could be better explained by Piaget's theory. According to Piaget, there could still be development, while Vygotsky believes that there would be no development since the child cannot move out of the area closest to his ZPD without expert help external. Although it is difficult to design experiments based on this hypothesis, we could nevertheless obtain data to support the psychological study of feral children from the Genie case (Fromkin, Krashen, Curtiss, Rigler, & Rigler, 1974). Genie suffered severe abuse, neglect, and social isolation, and was kept in a locked room since she was 20 months old without exposure to meaningful language. Genie was rescued at the age of 13 and her mental age was only 13 months. Since then, specially designed language programs have been delivered to Genie and she has been found to have made substantial progress in her overall psychological development. It was recorded that Genie's mental age increased to 5 years in 10 months. Then, for some reasons, the programs were stopped and it turned out that the newly acquired skills were regressing very quickly. The case of the wild child perhaps supports Vygotsky's theory, in that adult interaction seems to be the main factor behind Genie's psychological development. However, we must admit that the main factor that allowed her to quickly acquire social skills is that she built a mature internal stage, ready for rapid learning. With the same adult interactions, we may not be able to teach a 13 month old toddler to speak like a 5 year old in 10 months. In fact, one of the main conclusions of.