Essay Compare and Contrast Viaget and Vygotsky - 2238 Words

Cognition is the process involved in thinking and mental activity, such as attention, memory and problem solving. In this essay on cognitive development I will compare and contrast the theories of Piaget and Vygotsky, who were both influential in forming a more scientific approach to analysing the cognitive development process of the child active construction of knowledge. (Flanagan 1996 P.72). I will then go onto evaluate the usefulness of these theories in understanding a childs development. Both Piaget and Vygotsky agreed that childrens cognitive development took place in stages. (Jarvis, Chandler 2001 P.149). However they were distinguished by different styles of thinking. Piaget was the first t reveal that children reason and†¦show more content†¦These are assimilation, accommodation, and equilibrium. Assimilation involved the incorporation of new events into pre-existing cognitive structures. Accommodation is the adjustment involved in the formation of new mental structures needed to accommodate new information. Equilibration involved the person striking a balance between himself and the environment, between assimilation and accommodation. When a child 2 experienced a new event, disequilibrium set in until he was able to assimilate and accommodate the new information and thus attain equilibrium. There were many different types of equilibrium between assimilation and accommodation, which varied with the levels of development and the problems, which needed to be solved. (Thomson, Meggit 1997 P.105) This dual process, assimilation-accommodation, enabled the child to form schema, and with each stage there came new methods for organising knowledge together with the acquisition of new schema. Schemas are Form action plans which guide us in understanding what is going on around us (Hayes b. P.15) These are similar to responses but imply more cognitive processes. A schema includes ideas, information, actions and plans. People can learn by adopting new schemes or combine smaller already present schemes to create new larger ones. (Hayes a. 1999 P.98) In contrast of Piaget, Vygotsky, a Russian psychologist and philosopher in the