Lev Semenovich Vygotsky 1896-1934

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Lev Semenovich Vygotsky 1896-1934
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Vygotsky

• A persons interpersonal, or internal processes,
  have their roots in interactions with others.
• Emphasized language and social interaction much
  more than Piaget
• Proposed that developmental progress occurs
  through discussion and reasoning in a social
  context (language is a tool use to aid
  development)

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Vygotsky

• Soviet Dialectical theory
• Contradiction spurs development
• Start with one notion (thesis)
• Find something that contradicts (antithesis)
• Work to resolve contradiction by constructing
  some new concept that takes both thesis and
  antithesis into account (synthesis)

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Vygotskys Stages

• From independent genetic roots language and
  thought begin to merge early in development
• Stage1 (1st year) Pre-verbal thought and
  pre-intellectual speech
• Stage 2 (2nd year) Practical intelligence and
  syntactic mastery
• Stage 3 (2-4 years) Egocentric speech using
  symbols as aids/discovering that things have
  names
• Stage 4(4years to adulthood) inner speech and
  the growth of verbal thought

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Vygotskys Position on merging of thought and
speech

• If childrens language climate is full of
  simplistic or primitive language, they will
  think simplistically or primitively

meaning becomes a unit of verbal thinking
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thought becomes inner speech...
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some thought is aided by symbols
physical rules grammatical
rules
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practical knowledge
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Birth
Thought
Speech
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Vygotskys Sociocultural Theory of Cognitive
Development

• Developed three main developmental ideas
• Internalization
• Zone of Proximal Development
• Scaffolding

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Vygotskys Sociocultural Theory of Cognitive
Development

• Internalization - taking in knowledge observed in
  a social context.
• Language is key to the internalization of complex
  ideas.

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Vygotskys Sociocultural Theory of Cognitive
Development

• Zone of Proximal Development - the range between
  a childs level of independent performance and
  the level of performance a child can reach with
  assistance.

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Vygotskys Sociocultural Theory of Cognitive
Development

• Scaffolding- competent assistance or support,
  usually provided through mediation of the
  environment by a parent or teacher, by which
  cognitive, socioemotional, and behavioral forms
  of development are facilitated.