Vygotsky's Theory of Social Development

Vocabulary flashcards detailing key terms, concepts, and figures associated with Vygotsky's theory of social development.

Vygotsky's Theory of Social Development

A learning theory arguing that community and language play a central part in learning and that children develop independently of specific stages as a result of social interactions.

Jean Piaget

A psychologist who concluded that children's cognitive development happens in stages, whose ideas Vygotsky rejected.

Elementary Mental Functions

The four innate cognitive skills we are born with: attention, sensation, perception, and memory.

Higher Mental Functions

Advanced cognitive skills that individuals gain when social and cultural environments allow them to develop their elementary mental functions.

Zone of Proximal Development

The learning area between what a person can do on their own and what is beyond their reach, representing what can be done with the help of a more knowledgeable other.

More Knowledgeable Other

An adult, friend, technology, or mentor who provides guidance and assistance to help a learner acquire new skills within the zone of proximal development.

Internalization

The gradual process through which inner speech develops from external speech, causing thought itself to develop as a result of conversation.

Inner Speech

Thought processes that become independent from spoken language once the process of internalization is complete.

Lev Vygotsky

An influential 20th-century psychologist who proposed the social development theory and died of tuberculosis in 1934 at the age of 37.