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Cognitive Development: Comparing the Main Ideas of Piaget and Vygotsky

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Cognitive Development:
Comparing the Main Ideas of Piaget and Vygotsky
Valerie Smith

Cognitive Development:
Comparing the Main Ideas of Piaget and Vygotsky
The benefits of understanding cognitive development are many and varied, and yet there is still much that we do not know. Understanding the main theories that already exist can help in furthering our knowledge, and will spark new ideas for furthering the study of cognitive development. In this paper, I will compare the sociocultural view of Lev Vygotsky with Jean Piaget’s cognitive developmental view. Before discussing how these theorists differ, it is helpful to understand the main points of their theories. Sigelman & Rider (2011) state that Vygotsky believed that the cognitive growth of a child occurs strictly in a sociocultural context and would change and grow based on the child’s social interactions. He believed that cultural and social experiences affected not only what we think, but how we think. Piaget, on the other hand, would have said that children are actively creating their own knowledge through both their experiences and “inborn intellectual functions, which he called the organization and adaptation.” (Sigelman & Rider, 2011)
One of the main questions of any discussion on development would revolve around whether or not development is universally experienced in the same way by all persons, or if development is context-specific (in other words, does our environment affect how we develop, grow and learn?). While Piaget said that cognitive development is perhaps more universally experienced, Vygotsky seemed to disagree. He argued that cognitive development depends on the social and historical context of one’s life. Vygotsky also believed that growth in terms of cognition will mostly result from the child’s social interactions (specifically with the instruction and reassurance of a

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