Compare the methods, theories & contributions of any two psychologists

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Compare the methods, theories & contributions of any two psychologists

Early child development has been an area of Psychological study that has attracted an enormous amount of interest and debate since the late nineteenth century.

Two Psychologists renowned for their contributions to the psychological study of child development were Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky.  It is these two psychologists I will be comparing for the purpose of this assessment.

Piaget believed that throughout development, the child learns by actively engaging with his/her environment.  He argued that development occurs as a result of the organization of the environmental information and how a child adapts to the environment.  Piaget also recognized that the development of biological structures constrains cognitive development.

Piaget’s theory believes and states that cognitive development occurs in a series of stages, all of which occur in a specific order.  Development between and within these stages requires the child’s organization, adaptation and creation of a number of schema.  Schema are cognitive structures by which organization and assimilation occur.  Schemata provide the child with a representation of the world, to include its environment, people and experiences.

Assimilation and accommodation are also required for development to be successful.  Active integration of new info into existing schemata, resulting in growth of schemata, rather than change.  Modification of existing schemas or creation of new schemes s a necessity for children to progress from the different stages of development.

In Piaget’s account, the first stage is the period of ‘sensori motor intelligence’, which lasts until about two years of age.  During this period, the infant develops the concept of object permanence, builds up coordinated sensorimotor schemas, becomes capable of deferred imitation and acquires increasingly complex mental representations.

Piaget was led to his views of object permanence when he observed that babies typically look at a new toy with delight and excitement.  But, he also noticed and recorded that if the toy were removed the baby would show no concern.  Piaget investigated this using a toy and a cloth.  Piaget draped a cloth over a toy while the child was watching.  The toy was still within the child’s reach and its shape was still visible through the folds in the cloth.  The child watched it being covered, but still the child made no effort to retrieve it.   According to Piaget, this is because the toy, which is no longer visible to the child, has therefore ceased to exist in the mind of the child.

The notion that an object exists in its own right when they are not seen, felt, heard or reached for is a major accomplishment of the sensorimotor period.  This notion emerges as infants gradually integrate their motor reactions with the information provided by different sensory modalities such as vision, hearing and touch.  A child will eventually grasp the fact that there is one spatial framework in which all the worlds objects, including themselves, exist.  It is the sophisticated schemas the child has developed that make all of this possible.

The next stage in Piaget’s theory of child development usually lasts until the child reaches the age of around six or seven.  Piaget called it the ‘preoperational period,’ during which children are capable of representational thought but lack the mental operations that order and organise these thought processes.  Characteristics of this stage include an inability to conserve number and quantity, and egocentrism.

Lack of conservation means that the child is unable to understand that an objects properties remain consistent even when appearance changes.  Piaget investigated this by placing 2 identical glasses (labeled A and B) side by side.  Each glass is filled with the same amount of liquid.  Firstly, the child is asked whether there is more liquid in one glass or the other.  At this point the child is able to accept that both are in equal in the amount of liquid they contain.

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The next step was to add a third glass, which was shorter and wider than A and B, and he labeled this C.  Piaget then poured the contents of glass A into glass C, and asked the child which glass then held the most liquid.  The Child replied by saying there is less liquid in glass C because the level is lower.  The child was impressed by the visible changes in liquid level to realize there is an underlying consistency in quantity.

According to Piaget, a child is unable to conserve because of their inability to interrelate the ...

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