Vygosky’s theorie of development 1

Vygotsky's theories of development

The study of child development is very important and helps us understand the human
development process itself. Taking into account that human development can be defined as the set
of changes that all human beings undergo from the moment of conception until their death
"development of the life cycle". This is a process that affects all areas of life, mainly three aspects
that are the physical, the cognitive, and the psychosocial. All these same aspects are related to each
other and within the physical aspect, we find the growth of the body, of the brain, and the
development of sensory capacities and motor skills, the health of the body. The cognitive aspect
includes most of the basic and higher psychological processes (learning, memory, attention,
language, reasoning, thinking, and creativity). The psychosocial domain contains emotions,
personality, and social relationships. Human development is an evolutionary process that continues
throughout life, the different currents have studied the evolutionary stages of the human being,
contributing to various theories. And all these currents provide interesting elements, but they have
a partial vision of the human being and their approach. The first period recognized as childhood
goes from birth to 3 years and has been studied by many authors. Likewise, human development
has been researched by many authors. The theories themselves are some of the critical pillars of
science and the study of child and human development. Among these authors, we have Lev
Vygotsky, a great Russian psychologist, and theorist who investigated the stages of human
development and learning. Vygotsky's theory of development standing out and it is one of the most
relevant in the field to date.

The work of this Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky has become the basis for many theories
and research on cognitive development in recent decades. This author was contemporary of other
great thinkers such as Freud, Skinner, and Piaget, among others with whom when comparing his
works we find some similarities and differences about all this research. Then, Vygotskian theory
complements many of the ideas in information processing theory, which developed after his death.
Vygotsky's theory has been widely developed by a large number of authors (Brunner, Rogoff,
Wersch, Valsiner, etc.), its importance in education and knowledge of the human, child, and
learning development is recognized worldwide. Likewise, it points to a way of conceptualizing
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learning and development that has a decisive transformative influence on the teaching systems that
prevail in the world and focused on the structure of the content that is taught rather than on the
people who learn and in the learning as situated in culturally and historically defined human
groups. Vygotsky's theories emphasize the fundamental role of social interaction in the
development of cognition since he firmly believed that the community plays a central role in the
process of "giving the meaning". In its terms, it expresses “the process of cultural development
can be defined in terms of its content, such as the child's personality development and of the
conception of the world” (Vygotsky, 1983).

Vygotsky has also been criticized for placing too much emphasis on the role others play in a
shared activity and not enough on what the child must do to be an active participant. Thus, it is
forceful to postulate that development is a social process that begins from birth and is assisted by
adults or other agents considered more competent in handling the language, skills, and
technologies available in that cultural space. In this sense, this development is guarded or assisted
by the collaboration of third parties and carried out around the Proximal Development Zone, the
zone which defines the intellectual functions that are in the “Embryonic process or those that have
not yet matured”. This represents a hypothetical construct that expresses the difference between
what the children can achieve independently and what you can achieve in conjunction with a more
competent person, a mediator in the concept formation (Vygotsky, 1978).

Vygotsky placed too much emphasis on the role of speech in cognitive development and did
not adequately explore how other types of symbolic representations contribute to higher mental
functions. The discussion will focus on the social origin and social nature of the higher functions
of the mind in conjunction with culture. Another criticism is that Vygotsky himself, like his
followers, focused on the role of social factors in child development at the expense of biological
factors such as heredity or maturation. However, according to this author, the mental functioning
of an individual can only be understood by examining the social and cultural processes in which
he is inserted (Westsch and Tubiste, 1982). Within a general development process, there are two
different lines, the elemental processes, which are of biological origin, and the higher
psychological functions of sociocultural origin (Vygotsky, 1978).
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Vygotsky's Constructivist Approach was related and similar to the early works of Jean Piaget.
Likewise, the works of some of Vygotsky's students such as Leont'ev have more in common with
Piaget. The first difference between these authors is the following: Vygotsky places more emphasis
on culture and how it affects cognitive development; In contrast, Piaget and the conception of
universal stages of cognitive development and their sequential progress, Vygotsky never refers to
stages of evolutionary development. Therefore, Vygotsky assumes that cognitive development
varies by culture, while Piaget states that cognitive development is mostly universal regardless of
cultural differences.

Likewise, Vygotsky also emphasizes the social factors that contribute to cognitive
development. For this author cognitive development is due to guided social training interactions
within the zone of proximal development as children and their peers achieve the co-construction
of knowledge. In contrast, Piaget argued that cognitive development derives in large part from
independent explorations by children, who build knowledge on their own. For Vygotsky, the
environment in which children grow will influence what they think and how they will do it.

On the other hand, according to Vygotsky, adults are an important factor for cognitive
development. Adults transmit cultural tools of intellectual adaptation that children internalize
while Piaget stresses the importance of peer interaction to promote social perspective-taking.
Regarding learning and language, Vygotsky highlights the importance of the role of language in
cognitive development. According to Piaget, language depends on the thought for its development,
that is, thought comes before language. For Vygotsky, thought and language are initially separate
systems from the beginning of life, the fusion occurs around the age of three, with the production
of verbal thought (inner language). As a consequence, cognitive development results from an
internalization of language.

During the first half of the twentieth century, a new school of thought known as behaviorism
rose to become a dominant force within psychology. Behaviorists believed that psychology needed
to focus only on observable and quantifiable behaviors to become a more scientific discipline.
Vygotsky lived in the age of early behaviorism represented by John B. Watson. Although
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Vygotsky disagreed with the behaviorists, the influence of this theory was reflected in his
language.

Furthermore, Vygotsky opposed Watson's view of discourse as no different from other overt
behaviors. For Vygotsky, speech plays a unique role in the process of mental development, and
thought is substantially different from the speech in its form and function, but Watson believed
that thinking was just "silent speech." Vygotsky and behaviorists' views on the relationship
between learning and development also differ. Behaviorists do not distinguish between these two
processes and do not approach development as a separate concept.

So there are many similitudes and differences between each one of these movements, authors
and the theories proposed that we can expand now:

Vygosky’s theorie

Similitudes Differences

Like Piaget, Vygotsky claimed that children While Piaget focused on motor reflexes and
are born with a basic repertoire of abilities sensory abilities, Vygotsky refers to
that enable their intellectual development. elemental mental functions, attention,
sensation, perception. , and memory.

Like Piaget, Vygotsky believed that infants However, Vygotsky places greater
are curious creatures who actively emphasis on the social contribution to the
participate in their own learning process and development process, while Piaget
in the discovery and development of new emphasized discovery on his own initiative.
schemes. For Vygotsky, learning that occurs through
the child's social interaction with a
competent tutor is much more important.
 Vygosky’s theorie of development 5

Which can model behaviors and / or provide

verbal instructions to the child.

Behaviorists: We find similarities in that Although Vygotsky emphasized the unique

Vygotsky favored, like this theory, the use characteristics of the human mind, he also
of objective methods in psychology. This recognized that humans and animals have
theory differs considerably from other child certain common behaviors. Like
development theories because it gives no behaviorists, Vygotsky believed that
consideration to internal thoughts or animals and humans are part of the same
feelings. Instead, it focuses purely on how evolutionary center.
experience shapes who we are
experimental, just like behaviorists.

From this, Vygotsky concluded that Behaviorists, in fact, argue that all
behaviorists believe that learning is developing children are always the same
development. child, but they become more knowledgeable
and skilled as a result of learning.

In conclusion. The study of human development is a wide and varied subject. It is a complex
and difficult process to understand how and why people grow, learn, and act as they do. Likewise,
theories of child development focus on explaining how children change and grow throughout
childhood. These theories focus on various aspects of development, including social, emotional,
and cognitive growth. Developmental psychologists strive to answer certain questions of this
development and learning as well as to understand, explain, and predict behaviors that occur
throughout life. And to understand human development, several different theories on development
have emerged, among them the valuable contributions of the author Vygotsky, who had similar
and complementary ideas to authors of different theories and at the same time several criticisms
of how he developed his theory.
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