Jean Piaget Stages Of Cognitive Development Essay

Jean Piaget was a philosopher turned developmental psychologist who was fascinated with children and their reasoning. He theorized that by observing how a child’s mind matures that you may discover the key to human knowledge. Piaget, in his work, identified the different stages of mental growth. These stages became his stages of cognitive development that he theorized all children go through. Piaget believed that well go four stages in a sequential order. These stages included sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational and formal operational. Lev Vygotsky was a psychologist who developed a more sociocultural approach to cognitive development. He theorized how fundamental social interaction and the role of community was in the development
of a child. Piaget suggests that development is the result of both physical maturation and a child’s experiences.
Vygotsky’s approach to cognitive development focuses on social interactions between the child and people in the child’s environment, largely ignoring any biological factors like maturation. At least in the sensorimotor stage, Piaget primarily focuses on how infants interact with objects in their
environment. In this stage, they explore objects by touching and mouthing, and they learn things like object permanence.
However, these developments and schemes would not be the primary focus of Vygotsky’s theory, because he is more interested in how people interact with other people. Possibly the largest difference between Piaget and Vygotski is that Piaget argues that development follows a universal pattern. This sequence, he claims, is the same for all people, although the exact time that an individual enters a certain stage may vary. Piaget ignores the differences of experience across cultures. In contrast, Vygotsky’s social approach emphasizes difference between cultures. Since it is the sociocultural environment that shapes the development of the child, no two children will ever develop in exactly the same way. Where Piaget articulates a theory that shows what all humans have in common, Vygotsky’s theory emphasizes how they are all different. His universal outline that is firm explains why early childhood experiences don’t necessarily speed up or slow down development in extreme
ways. It also explains why children seem to develop in a similar sequence of stages. Vygotsky’s theory, on the other hand, explains why certain stages of development may occur faster or slower in different cultures, and provides one explanation for why there is variation in how long different infants take to reach different stages. Piaget's observations may be more accurate in a Westernized culture, then. Vygotsky helps us understand variations in development across culture. Another difference between them is that Piaget thinks of language as just a convenient expression of thought whereas Vygotsky thinks that language is the basis of though. It can also be said that they feel the same when it comes to learing. Piaget thinks that children learn from exploration and experimentation whereas Vygotsky thinks they learn in a social setting and primarly from adults.