Piaget & Vygotsky Study Guide - Child & Adolescent Development

What is assimilation?

When you incorporate new info into your current understanding (ex: calling something by a word that it similar to it)

What is accommodation?

When you change your existing understanding based on new information (ex: calling something by the right word)

What are Piaget’s 4 stages of development?

Sensorimotor, Preoperational, Concrete Operational, Formal Operational

What is the sensorimotor period?

From birth to age 2. When infants use reflexes for beginning problems.

Achievement: problem-solving and object permanence

Deficiency: no symbolic thought

substage 1 (birth-1 month): when infants refine reflexes (they get better at breastfeeding)

substage 2 (2-4 months): primary circular reaction (when an infant repeats something it likes from its own body: making sounds, etc, finds that pleasing and starts to repeat behavior). This is the beginning of intentional behavior.

substage 3 (4-8 months): secondary circular reaction (child likes an external object and repeats that behavior: child hits mobile and likes the movement, so repeats that action). Learns to make things happen to external objects.

substage 4 (8-12 months): coordination of secondary schemes (combines 2+ secondary reactions to achieve a goal), this is the 1st truly intentional behavior.

substage 5 (12-18 months): tertiary circular reactions (experiment with objects, try new methods to solve problems). This is the emergence of curiosity.

substage 6 (18-24 months): symbolic problem solving (carry out experiments mentally), deferred imitation (don’t imitate immediately but can defer up to 24 hrs), insight and planning (ex: put bread and stick on table, boy will use stick to get the piece of bread), object permanence (know objects still exist even when hidden)

what is the preoperational period?

From 2-7 years. Beginning to use mental symbols.

Ability: Symbolic functioning (being to make one thing represent another, ex: names aren’t the person but representative of the person, and pretend play

Deficiencies: egocentrism, animism, phenomenism, centration, and conservation, also: lacking logical thought (magical thinking, believing in things that aren’t logical)

What is the formal operational period?

12+ years.
Ability: abstract thought (thinking logically with abstract ideas). Kids can think in more abstract ideas, they are able to think logically but their thoughts aren’t always reality

Deficiency: Kids have all or non type of thinking, and frustrated with adults because they don’t see things as black and white (but shades of gray)

What is conservation?

Basic properties of objects don’t change even when appearance does. Ex: If you have 2 glasses of the same amount of liquid, then pour one glass into a taller glass, the child will say the liquid in the taller glass is more than the liquid in the original glass (but it’s the same volume of liquid).

What is egocentrism?

Not able to take someone else’s perspective. Ex: 3 mountains task (if a child is sitting across an adult, the child can see a certain view of the mountains, and instead of using logic to figure out the adult’s perspective they view the adult’s perspective as what they see)

What is animism?

Attributing lifelike qualities to inanimate objects. Ex: Thinking that a teddy bear could drink tea.

What is phenomenism?

Thinking an appearance is reality. Ex: A cat with a wolf mask, a child will think that it is a wolf.

What is centration?

When you only consider one aspect when you need to consider at least 2 (visual and perspective). Ex: A child would think that a nickel is worth more because it is bigger, but that isn’t true.

What is the problem with the deficiencies of the preoperational period?

They all use one way of thinking, and children think in more ways than one.

When does reversibility and seriation appear?

They appear in the concrete operational period (age 7-11).

What is reversibility?

The ability to mentally reverse an action (ex: subtraction in your head)

What is seriation?

The ability to mentally arrange objects along a dimension (length, height, weight) (ex: sorting sticks by length).,

What is hypothetical-deductive reasoning?

Where a hypothesis is generated, and it is tested in orderly fashion. Allows for complex problem solving. ex: scientific studies or math problems.

What are the criticisms to Piaget’s study?

His tasks might be too difficult (some tasks require a good memory, and some kids may not have that capacity), some kids might have low motivation to perform

Do some kids follow social conventions when they are asked something, or do they understand what they are being asked?

Do kids need to mature to complete these tasks, or can they complete the tasks with enough training?

Children perform at different levels on different tasks

The ages for Piaget’s stages aren’t always correct, some children reach stages earlier or later, but the sequence of his stages is always correct

What is the evidence that Piaget underestimated children?

Research shows that the ages Piaget has for his stages aren’t always true. some concepts can be grasped much earlier.

What is the A-not-B error?

8 months, when you show a child where you hide a toy multiple times, then hide it somewhere else, and they find it in the somewhere else place.

What are the main findings of the neo-Piagetians?

More emphasis needs to be put on children’s attention, memory, and strategies to process information. They believe that being able to understand a children’s thinking would be to focus on children’s strategies, speed of processing, and dividing problems into smaller steps. 

According to Vygotsky, what is the zone of proximal development?

This is the scale that measures tasks that could be too difficult for children. The upper level of the scale is tasks that children will need adult assistance, the lower level of this scale is tasks that children can work on their own. 

According to Vygotsky, what is scaffolding?

This is when the level of support is changed over the course of teaching sessions. 

According to Vygotsky, what is guided participation?

When adults and children share activities. This is usually in the form of a parent trying to teach their child something important to their culture. Through observational learning, children can be instilled values, skills, and mannerisms. Parents can broaden or limit children’s opportunities through their decisions. 

How does Piaget’s and Vygotsky’s theories differ with respect to language?

Piaget believed that language had a minimal role, and cognition primarily directs language. Vygotsky believed that language plays a powerful role in shaping thought.

How does Piaget’s and Vygotsky’s theories differ with respect to interactions with others?

Vygotsky believed that interaction with others helped children construct knowledge. Piaget believed that children need support to explore their world and discover knowledge.

How does Piaget’s and Vygotsky’s theories differ with respect to cultural context?

Vygotsky believed that it had a strong emphasis, while Piaget believed it had little emphasis.