Theories of Piaget and Vygotsky on Child Development

Running head: THEORIES OF PIAGET AND VYGOTSKY ON CHILD DEVELOPMENT
THEORIES OF PIAGET AND VYGOTSKY ON CHILD DEVELOPMENT
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THEORIES OF PIAGET AND VYGOTSKY ON CHILD DEVELOPMENT
Introduction
Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky are considered the pioneers of child development studies
whose theories have inspired educators across the globe to improve their teaching skills. Piaget
and Vygotsky, both proposed the cognitive development theory although their theories differed
from each other. The theories talk about the cognitive development of the child. While Piaget
argued that the child goes through four stages of development, Vygotsky argued for social
interaction as being the driving force behind a child’s development (Shayer, 2003). Teachers in
particular could benefit from the theories because it helps them understand the needs of the child.
The essay aims to discuss the influence of Piaget’s theory on the research findings related
to child and adolescent development.
Review of literature
The theory of cognitive development as proposed by Piaget is considered the milestone in
understanding children and adolescent development. The cognitive development model
comprises four stages – the sensorimotor stage, the preoperational stage, the concrete operational
stage and the formal operational stage (Huitt & Hummel, 2003). The first stage includes children
from birth to two years while the preoperational stage includes children aged between two and
seven years. The concrete operational stage includes children from the age of seven years until
the age of eleven years. The last stage, which is the formal operational stages talks about children
between the age of eleven years and fifteen years.
In the sensorimotor stage, the children create a sense of their own selves as well as the
understanding of the way things function around them. Assimilation and accommodation allows
the infant to absorb and incorporate new information. The preoperational stage allows the

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THEORIES OF PIAGET AND VYGOTSKY ON CHILD DEVELOPMENT
children to develop a sense of symbols and use them to represent places, people and events. In
the concrete operational stage, the child begins to develop logic but does not build the capacity
of developing abstract thinking (Ojose, 2008). The final stage of Piaget’s development model,
the formal operational stage, includes children who develop the capacity of abstract thinking.
They begin to think and feel like adults and learn from past experiences.
In the broader literature concerning child and adolescent development, several researches
have focused on the cognitive development based on Piaget’s stages. Van der Fels et al. (2015)
conducted a study on the relationship between a child’s motor and cognitive skills. The study
found insufficient evidence concerning the correlation between motor skills and cognitive skills
of children although some evidence was found especially in “complex motor skills and higher
order cognitive skills”. As evident from the study, the findings clearly relate to the theory of
Piaget. Without knowledge about cognitive skills, it is difficult to analyze motor skills. The
theory is also related to the studies concerning the children and adolescent’s mental health. As
the study by Bor et al. (201 4) find, the mental health problems experienced by adolescents are
largely due to social and cultural factors. Cognitive development, as proposed by Piaget, also
talks about the factors that influence the development of children.
Berk (2003) studied the development of an infant child and stated that “infant
development proceeds at an astonishing pace”. The author talks about the motor skills of the
child that develops very fast at the initial stage. The author further highlights the importance of
sleep and good health in the overall development of a child. This relates to the theory of Piaget in
that it talks about the cognitive development especially the first stage, which is the sensoriotor
stage. The child attains the skills to assimilate and accommodate information as the author
explains. Researches on the theory and practices of educational psychology have also been