Piaget

Developmental Paper
There are many competing theoretical accounts of how children think and learn. For the purposes of this essay we will be focusing on two of the most dominant theorists of the domain, Jean Piaget and L.S Vygotsky. In order to put the discussion in context, it will be useful to establish some background information to provide us with an insight into their respective sources of interest in children and how this has directed and influenced their theories.
Piaget’s ideas have only really dominated our thinking about learning since the mid-sixties. His specific area of interest lay in biology and his quest to create a universal theory of biology and knowledge, applicable to all living systems, motivated his studies of children. Vygotsky, on the other hand, wished to understand the nature, evolution and transmission of human culture. Their respective orientations naturally lead to different perspectives about the nature of childhood.
Although Vygotsky and Piaget do concur on a number of important issues, their thinking is at its most distinct when discussing the roles played by social interaction and cultural influences; a point which is most significantly illustrated in their respective treatment of the role that language plays and its effect on thinking. It is this issue which will provide the focus point of the essay.
Piaget was primarily interested in intelligence. For him, this represented the means by which human beings adapt to their environment as an individual constructs an understanding of reality through interacting with it. Knowledge has to be actively discovered. Piaget believed that cognitive development is the combined result of biological maturation and experiences. Furthermore, he saw cognitive development as a long progression from infantile illogic to logical maturity. His academic background in biology led him to believe that all humans were genetically similar and shared many of the same experiences. Consequently, he chartered