Piaget’s theory is immensely rich, deep and quite often very difficult; as such it resists encapsulation. However, it is possible to draw out certain themes. Piaget clearly distinguishes between development and learning, believing the former to be a spontaneous, structured whole, in contrast to the provoked, limited nature of the latter. Piaget argued that there are four main factors in the development of one set of structures from another: maturation, experience, social transmission and equilibration.
Piaget devised a number of ingenious tests of thought to illustrate this style of thinking and to study ‘how children developed the ability to realise that there are things that do not change even when there are perceptual transformations.’ (Light and Oates, 1990 pg 101). He illustrated his concepts of egocentricism by using a three mountains task and conservation tasks. These studies came to the following conclusions that children are: 1) unable to conserve, 2) They are unable to reserve mental operations and 3) they are perceptually egocentric. When discussing Piaget’s experiments ecological validity needs to be taken into account. Piaget used his own children as participants and the clinical interview method also casts doubts.
Another criticism relates to the concept of biological maturation or ‘readiness’. If the development of cognitive structures is related to maturity, then practice should not improve performance. In other words, if a person is not biologically ready to move on to the next stage then no amount of practice should get them there. However, there is evidence to suggest that practice can make a difference (Danner and Day 1977).
Piaget did not deny the role of experience. He used the concept of ‘horizontal decalage’ to explain why it is that not all aspects of the same stage appear at the same time; for example, the ability to conserve number and volume may not appear at the same time, but one after the other. He suggested that uneven cognitive performance is probably due to different learning experiences.
A third criticism relates to the role of language and social factors. Piaget did not feel that language influenced cognitive development. To incorporate these two elements researchers have extended Piaget’s experiments. Margaret Donaldson (1978, as cited by Lights and Oates, p 114) argued that the real problem with the Piagetian tasks is that they are testing diembedded thinking on the part of the child; they are asking the child to solve problems unrelated to the child’s own knowledge and experience. A change in materials used will enable children to perform better on some tasks than on others.
Several aspects of Piaget’s theory have been questioned but other aspects remain influential. Piaget’s work has encouraged other theorists such as Vygotsky to study children’s cognition.
Vygotsky took a socio cultural view of development that makes social interaction the centre of his theory. Cognition and behaviour arise from the interaction of a person with other persons and vents in the world, over time with the use of cultural tools. Vygotsky claimed that cultural tools are acquired through interacting with others, which children then adopt as their own: what was an interpersonal behaviour pattern becomes an intrapersonal cognitive process. One major way in which Vygotsky’s theory is distinctive is the importance for him of instruction. He believed that the highest forms of thinking could only be achieved through appropriate instruction. Vygotsky claimed that purely abstract thinking is only found in highly technological cultures, which have a heavy emphasis on formal instruction. Whereas Piaget concluded that young children's language is egocentric and non-social, Vygotsky reasoned that children speak to themselves for self-guidance and self-direction. Because language helps children think about their own behaviour and select courses of action, Vygotsky regarded it as the foundation for all higher cognitive processes. Vygotsky believed that through joint activities with more mature members of society, children come to master activities and think in ways that have meaning in their culture. He believed that children learn best when tasks are in their zone of proximal development, a range of tasks that the child cannot yet handle alone but can accomplish with the help of adults and more skilled peers. This emphasises the role of the adult as a teacher.
Vygotsky's theory has also influenced education through concepts and techniques such as assisted discovery, peer collaboration, reciprocal teaching, and cooperative learning. A new Vygotsky-inspired educational approach transforms classrooms into communities of learners, where no distinction is made between adult and child contributions; all collaborate and develop. An evaluation of Vygotsky's theory indicates that its emphasis on the role of language may not accurately describe cognitive development in all cultures. Also, by focusing on the cultural line of development, his theory does not describe exactly how elementary cognitive processes contribute to higher cognitive processes derived from social experience.
Vygotsky's theory was an attempt to explain consciousness as the end product of socialisation. For example, in the learning of language, our first utterances with peers or adults is for the purpose of communication but once mastered they become internalised and allow "inner speech".
Like Piaget’s theory, Vygotsky’s theory is also a stage theory. ‘Both Piaget and Vygotsky agreed that human development is made up of both continuous and discontinuous changes and that transitions in development are the result of changes in the organisation of mental structures. However, Vygotsky believed that instruction is essential to reach the highest levels of thinking. He argued that purely abstract levels pf thinking are only prevalent in technologically advanced societies which emphasise formal in struction.’ (Gupta and Richardson, 1995, p14)
Vygotsky believed the pattern of social interaction determines the structure and pattern of internal cognition: ‘the very mechanism underlying higher mental functions is a copy from social interaction; all higher mental functions are internalised social relationships. (Vygotsky, 1988,p74,p14)
Piaget assumed that development and instruction are entirely separate, incommensurate processes; the function of instruction is merely to introduce adult ways of thinking, which conflict with the child’s own and eventually supplant them. Studying child thought apart from the influence of instruction, as Piaget did, excludes a very important source of change (Vygotsky 1962, p116 –17)
In summary, Vygotsky argued strongly that the child’s cognitive development took place as a result of social interactions between the child and other people. Vygotsky’s theory centred on the social construction of knowledge. The infant has elementary mental functions. This kind of thinking is not dissimilar to that of other primates. Around the age of two, the use of language and other cultural symbols transforms a child’s rudimentary abilities into more sophisticated cognitive abilities. These symbols are learned from others (experts) and are therefore external. In time they become internalised. This child learns to make sense of the world through the ‘shared meanings’ of others.
There is little empirical evidence for Vygotsky’s theory, but it is growing, as interest in the theory has increased. Glassman (1999) argues it is wrong to see Vygotsky and Piaget as opposites, that in fact the two theories are remarkably similar especially at their central core. Piaget focused on the natural laws of intellectual development while Vygotsky concentrated on the impact of social processes and culture. An integration of both views might therefore be highly productive.
The next theory is connectionist modelling which shows that the human brain has many interconnected cells which acts as a self organising system that creates representations in interaction with structured information in its environment (Plunkett and Sinha, 1992) The changes of structures and complexity in such representations are seen as the essence of cognitive development. Some connectionist theorists claim that the development of representational networks takes an essentially ‘constructivist form, thus presenting an amalgamation of association and constructivist perspectives.
Jerry Fodor (1983) has argued that there is little evidence for qualitative or structural changes in development at all. Instead he suggests that we are all born with identical representational and computational systems, which are genetically pre-structured to allow us to make sense of the world in which humans evolved.’(Gupta and Richardson, p21) Recent theory based on this idea involves the concepts of models and domains. ‘Modules are different subsets of our neural networks, which are genetically pre structured for processing information. The ‘architectures’ and processes in these specialised sets don’t change with age and experience. Rather their task is to pass on the information they have processed to a ‘central executive’ in the form of common language of thought. On this basis the executive builds up information in memory, and can generate new hypothesis about the world, make decisions and so on.’ (Gupa and Richardson, 1995 p21)
A domain is the set of representations on which a particular kind of knowledge and the cognitive processes associated with it are based. Development according to this theory is ‘domain specific’ – which means that development (or maturation) in one domain is independent of development (or maturation) in other domains. Meaning that children can develop in particular areas such as writing but could be backward in drawing. This though does not necessarily imply a modular system. Piaget’s is domain general in that development in particular domains arises from the application of the same general processes to different knowledge areas. (Gupa and Richardson, 1995 p21)
The difference between the stage theorists and Fodor is that the modules focus predominantly on their role in on line processing. Little account has been taken into consideration of developmental change apart from when new modules are being developed. Piaget believes that processing or storage of information is domain specific, but however must recognize that there are different sensory transducers for vision, audition, touch etc. Neither the Piagetian nor the behaviourist theory takes into consideration that the infant has any innate structures or domain specific knowledge. Each grants only some domain – general, biologically specified processes: for the Piagetians, a set of sensory reflexes and three functional processes (assimilation, accommodation, and equilibration. Piaget sees the infants mind as assailed by ‘undifferentiated and chaotic inputs (Piaget, 1955, as cited in Gupta and Richardson) is substantially the same. The nativist thesis sees the infant pre – programmed to make sense of specific information sources rather than one that has a chaotic mind.
In conclusion it can be seen that both Piaget’s and Vygotsky’s theories have had a significant effect on the way that children cognitive processes have been studied and they have also had a profound effect on education. It would be fair to say that Vygotsky did not reject all of the elements of Piaget’s theory but took the weak areas and strengthened them by taking into consideration socio – cultural factors and language for example. The connectionist modelling theory is domain specific and believes that children’s minds are pre - programmed and organised. Children’s minds are very complicated and not easy to study psychologically, but with these three different perspectives we are able to understand children’s cognitive abilities better.
References:
Inhelder and Piaget, (1958), as cited in ‘Children’s Cognitive and Language Development, Gupta, P and Richardson, K (1995), Blackwell Publishers Ltd in association with the Open University.
Light P and Oates, J (1990) ‘The development of Children’s Understanding’ in Roth, I (Ed) Introduction to Psychology, Vol 1, Hove, East Sussex, Psychology Press in association with the Open University.
Glassman (1999) as cited in ‘Cognitive Development’ in Gross, R and McIlveen, Psychology a New Introduction, Hodder and Stoughton.
Gupta and Richardson, 1995, Children’s Cognitive and Language Development, Blackwell Publishers Ltd in association with the Open University.
Smith et al, 1998, as cited in ‘Children’s Cognitive and Language Development, Gupta, P and Richardson, K (1995), Blackwell Publishers Ltd in association with the Open University.
Vygotsky, L.S. (1988) ‘The genesis of higher mental functions’ in Richardson, K and Sheldon, S. (eds) Cognitive development to Adolescents, Hove, Erlbaum.
