Developmental Psychology - Lecture 4 - Vygotsky\'s Cognitive Development PDF

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Teacher - Hetal Patel - developmental psychology unit derived from key topics in psychology module...

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Developmental Psychology Lecture 4 Vygotsky’s Cognitive Development His theory:  

Cognitive skills should be seen with their social, cultural and historical context > anything can have an influence on a child’s cognitive skills We need to see what’s important in their context as everything that the child can encounter will have an effect.

Importance of cultural and social setting: 

 

Luria, 1979, investigated the effects of introduction of schooling on cognitive processes:  Non literate peasant’s vs experiences literacy and training in new farming methods  Gave a test of logic  Group 1 said white group 2 said ask Ivan This tells us to look at context where this has taken place We get our knowledge based on our social and historical context.

Sociocultural origins of mental functioning   

Children use knowledge from their own culture Psychological mediational tools Can only understand mental functioning of the individual if we take into account the social processes on which it is based.

Kpelle of Liberia:   

Culturally different Activities based on rice farming Variations in adult performance – their ability to estimate was better than those of a person estimating in a western culture

Each culture has its own culture curriculum:   

Tribe in Pakistan highly value observational skills Conservation task – judge contents are less Encourage perceptual skills which are relevant to their lives

Sociocultural context is important   

Rogoff and Waddell, 1982 – performance of memory task on Mayan children 20/80 small objects that were familiar to children, 20 objects placed back, and children asked to reconstruct Mayan children performed better than Western children

How does learning happen according to Piaget and Vygotsky?  

Vygotsky – outside in (created through interaction with social environment) Piaget – inside out (psychological structures and processes; being internal and individualistic – lone scientist)

Process must be seen in the context of a person’s culture and the tools and aids that exist in that culture. Interactions with others are also important: 

Learning depends on other people (those who are more knowledgeable) > this led to a key concept = zone of proximal development

Zone of proximal development:    

What the learner can do with guidance This is always changing – not static Frede – fruit classification task > children were able to separate fruit and non-fruit items and that they should change the classification as they could have done that before new condition was to sort items that would go into a cupboard or a fridge.

More knowledgeable others:   

anyone who has more knowledge than us on any task its about how they interact with the person in terms of cooperation, collaboration or dialogues they transmit verbal instructions and child understands the instructions and eventually internalises it

Scaffolding:   

social collaboration that fosters cognitive growth MKO participates and tailors support to the learner so that they can profit once they get their understanding of doing something themselves. Wood (and Middleton), 1986, 1975, 1978: 4-year olds asked to construct pyramids compromising of 21 wooden blocks – mothers shown in advance how to do this  5 categories of support – children more likely to succeed if they > the level of helped increased after failing and if the child passes, the level of control decreases

Guided Participation:    

How young children become confident in daily tasks Simple chores to do at first as they become used to it The child is then an apprentice (‘lone scientist’) Freund – doll house task 3-5-year olds > where furniture should be placed so child did it by themselves and then were helped by either their parent or do it themselves again. They found that if they had helped the second time around, they had their work improved.

View on language and learning:     

Levina’s observation - Child trying to reach a piece of candy Pre- schoolers try to get candy silently but begin to talk to themselves > speech becomes plan-full Language used to communicate thought and help solve practical tasks Thought and language co-exist External speech precedes internal

Three ways speech is used by children Age of Child 0-3 years

Stage of Speech Social

3-7 years

Private

7+ years

Inner

Function of Speech Controls how others behave; express simple emotions Talks a lot to themselves, bridge between social and inner speech, controls own behaviour Stream of consciousness that us involved in higher mental functioning

Private speech and cognitive development   

Private speech helps them in development to guide themselves on how to carry out that activity. Language also helps thinking and understanding. If Vygotsky’s suggestions are right children will: talk more with difficult tasks and perform better on cognitive tasks if they talk more...