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Summary Cognition and development model answers
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Describe and evaluate Vygotsky’s theory of cognitive development
Vygotsky agreed with many of the basics of Piaget’s cognitive development, especially children’s
reasoning abilities which develop in a particular sequence however Vygotsky saw cognitive
development as a social process of learning from experienced others; adults or older children and he
also saw language as a more important component of cognitive development than Piaget did. He
argued there will be cultural differences in cognitive abilities and it follows the particular reasoning
abilities of their particular people, and the children will pick up mental abilities most important for
life within their physical, social and work environments.
With Vygotsky’s heavy emphasis on the role of learning thought interaction with others, he argues
there is a gap between a child's current level of development and what they know and what they can
potentially understand after the interaction with the experts. This is called the zone of proximal
development. The experts help them to cross the ZPD by using scaffolding in which an adult or older
child can aid them over the ZPD meaning the child will acquire more advanced reasoning abilities.
The five aspects of scaffolding; recruitment, reduction of degrees of freedom, direction maintenance,
marking critical features and demonstration help the child cross this gap. Wood et al. suggests that
the level of help an expert gives ranges from a 5 to a 1 and the amount of help an expert gives
correlates to how the child grasps the tasks. If they begin to understand, the amount of help given
will decline. Yet the amount of understanding they can get of a situation depends on their current
developmental stage, sometimes limiting them from grasping some concepts.
There is evidence to show a gap in the level of reasoning a child can achieve on their own and what
they can achieve with the help form a more expert other. For example, Roazzi and Bryant gave 4-5
year old children the task of estimating the number of sweets in a row. In one condition the children
worked alone and in another they worked with the help of an older child. Most children working
alone failed to give a good estimate. In the expert help condition the expert children were observed
to offer prompts, pointing the younger children in the right direction to work out how to arrive at
their estimate. Most 4-5 year olds receiving this kind of help successfully mastered the task. Studies
that this support the idea of children developing additional reasoning abilities when working with a
more expert individual. This suggests the ZPD is a valid developmental concept as it is supported by
further evidence.
His ideas have been highly influential in education in the last decade. The idea that children can learn
more and faster with appropriate scaffolding has raised expectations on what they should be able to
achieve. Social interaction in learning, through group work and peer tutoring and individual adult
assistance from teachers and teaching assistants have been used to scaffold children through their
zones of proximal development. In some schools form groups that meet once or twice a day are a
mixture between all the years, rather than secluded to a particular year group. Showing Vygotsky’s
theory has had applications in real life, in particular education.
However, Vygotsky assumed that the processes of learning are largely the same in all children. This
doesn't take account of individual differences. Some children learn best during social interaction this
may not be true for everyone. Personality and style of information processing of the learner may
have powerful effects on what sort of activities and what sort of help works for different children.
, Showing that not all individuals are acknowledged and his theory may not be helpful in
understanding the learning processes of every child and this idea may not be applicable to all.
Furthermore, there is plenty of evidence to support the idea that interaction can enhance learning.
But if Vygotsky was right about the process of interactive learning, we would expect all children
learning together to pick up very similar skills and a very similar mental representation of material.
However, Howe et al found what children learn actually varies considerable between individuals,
even in group learning situations. when she put 9-12 year olds in groups of four to discuss
movements of objects down a slope. The researchers found that the children;s level of knowledge
and understanding was increased after the discussion- however the children has not picked up the
same facts and knowledge. So even when children experience the same interaction or experience
they don't necessarily have the same level or nature of cognitive development. Showing his theory
doesn't fully explain the differential rate of development of different children in which Piaget’s
concept of maturation can.
Discuss Piaget theory of cognitive development
Discuss the development of children’s understanding of others (16 marks)
A01:
- Selman’s levels of perspective taking:
Selman investigated the development of children’s understanding of others by looking at social
perspective-taking, this involves looking at how children develop the ability to recognise what
someone else is feeling or thinking. He focuses on the role of social cognition controlling mental
processes that we make use of when engaged in social situations, telling us how to behave in a
certain environment. He developed his theory through perspective-taking research in which he
involved 60 adolescent participants, 20 4yr olds, 20 5 yr olds, 20 6 yr olds and asked them individually
to describe how different characters would feel in different scenarios that he explained to them.
Children of the same age gave similar answers, therefore Selman concluded that there was a pattern
related to reasoning at different ages.
Selman proposed a stage theory based on cognitive maturity which described the progression of
children from being egocentric and unaware of any perspective other than their own, to being
mature and considering a number of perspectives. These stages were as followed; egocentric 3-6
years, social informational 6-8 years, self-reflective 8-10 years, mutual 10-12 years, and finally social
system role taking 12 + years.
Furthermore, the theory of mind is an alternate explanation for children’s understanding of others
which has been found to be present during infancy. Theory of mind is our ability to ‘mind read’ and
create personal theories regarding what other people know or are feeling/thinking, developing a
belief about what is in someone else’s mind.
Discuss the role of the mirror neuron system in social cognition (16 marks)
Briefly explain what is meant by the term social cognition. (2 marks)
▪ Social cognition refers to the mental processes that we use when interacting with other
people. For example, we have to make sense of the situation, and then we have to make
decisions regarding how we should behave.
In the context of social cognition, explain what is meant by perspective-taking. (2 marks)
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