Vygotsky

Question 1

Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory

Answer 1

child’s cognitive development is based on interaction with other people in order to develop cultural tools to understand the world

Question 2

Cultural Tools

Answer 2

implicit and explicit rules/norms in the culture (transferred via imitation, collaborative learning, or instructions)

Question 3

What did P + V agree upon?

Answer 3

• children actively construct knowledge
• learn better if knowledge is related to or built upon already existing knowledge
• both acknowledge the role of biological maturation on development

Question 4

What did Vygotsky say we were born with?

Answer 4

‘Elementary Mental Functions’:
- attention
- sensation
- memory
- perception

Question 5

What did Vygotsky believe differently to Piaget

Answer 5

• Learning precedes development
• placed more emphasis on language (he said the internalization of language was important and used for problem-solving and thinking)
• P says development is universal and occurs in stages, V places more emphasis on how culture affects development

Question 6

Components of Vygotsky’s theory

Answer 6

• more knowledgeable other (parent, sibling, peer who the child seeks to understand then internalizes the information)
• zone of proximal development: difference btwn what a child can achieve independently compared to what a child can achieve with guidance and encouragement from a MKO^)
• scaffolding: child is able to inc. competence if they receive assistance for a task that is just slightly outside of their current ability

Question 7

What is the role of language in development according to Vygotsky

Answer 7

Language is not only used for communication-but thinking and problem-solving too
- private speech: talking aloud to oneself (allows children to plan activies/strategies

Question 8

What are Vygotsky’s stages of language development

Answer 8

• pre-intellectual speech
• autonomous speech
• naive psychology
• communicative and egocentric speech

Question 9

What is pre-intellectual speech

Answer 9

language is merely a social conduct; crying, babbling, gesturing, etc

Question 10

What is autonomous speech

Answer 10

(12m) child invents words for objects in effort to communicate with adults

Question 11

What is naive psychology

Answer 11

• (18-24m) begins to use adult words
• makes connections between word/object
• words have a much greater meaning (“car” = “I see a car”
• as thought differentiate, can formulate simple requests and simple sentences

Question 12

What is communicative and egocentric speech

Answer 12

(3ish years) speech splits into 2 types
1. communicative
- purpose is to convey meaning to others
2. egocentric
- self talk, guides themselves through a task with no intention of communicating with others
- often occurs in the presence of others
- becomes INNER SPEECH: silent form of verbal thinking-this represents the most advanced level of the relationship between speech and thinking

Question 13

Evaluate Vygosky’s Theory

Answer 13

• successfully applied in teaching (scaffolding + cooperative learning)
• more holistic view compared to Piaget
• lack of empirical support for his theory-most regarding role of language in development