Developmental Psychology Essay

Cognitive development involves create c at oncepts of thought, problem solving and memory (Green. 2002). jean Piaget (1896-1980) and Lev Vygotsky (1896-1934) were both psychologists, which focused on cognitive development and the bearing in which pincerrens thought and reasoning developed as they matured. This assignment shall begin by describing and evaluating the theories fix up forward by Piaget and Vygotsky referring to question march and providing a conclusion.Piaget (1896-1980) was one of the more or less authoritative researchers in the atomic number 18a of developmental psychology during the 20th century and a as biologist was interested in the way in which organisms adapt to their environment this was depict by Piaget as intelligence. He pictureed demeanor or the adaptation to the environment as being controlled through mental organisations cognise as schemes that the individual uses in fix up to represent the world. Piaget suggested that adaptation is driven by a biological drive to acquire balance between schemes and the environment, which is known as equilibrium (Huitt. 2003).Within Piagets research and writings on cognitive development he suggested that peasantrens thoughts are not only less sophisticate than adults but they are also qualitatively different and this is due to less intimacy (Jarvis. 2000).  It was considered by Piaget that the interaction between the child and their environment was the main factor of shape on their cognitive development. Piagets entrance of children is that they are scientists and that they should be left to search their surroundings giving them the opportunity to be the world in their own way. The fighting(a) involvement in their own reading is described as a serial publication of schemas and that these schemas would change and develop through for each one grade through the process of assimilation or accommodation (Green. 2002).Piagets guess is based on stages of development in wh ich he believed that all children develop at the same age. There are iv stages to his development theory, which are sensorimotor (0-2 years) and the view that infants are developing their first schemas (Meggitt. 2000). butt permanence is the main focus in spite of appearance this stage and the assumption by Piaget that children age quintet or six months superannuated could not run across that an prey, which was covered, still exists. An look into showed that a child of five or six months showed no interest once the toy was covered whereas a hug drug month old would cause come on for the toy and seem to become agitated. Piagets interpretation of this was that the child of ten months had reached object permanence and now has a schema for the object.In contrast to this Tom spindle and Jennifer Wishart (1972) argued that objects do still exist in babys minds although they down been covered. To stand fall out their theory an experiment was undertaken using an unseeab le camera. An object was offered to the baby and as they reached out to grab it the lights were switched off. The results showed that the baby was still attempting to reach for the toy although they were unable to see it and so an explanation for Piagets theory was that by covering the object the baby was distrait and not necessarily that they had forgotten virtually it.The second stage is pre-operational stage (2-7 years). egotist thinking predominates the child (Huitt. 2003) within this stage and they do not have the energy to understand things from another persons view send according to Piaget. In pasture for this to be confirmed he behave up an experiment. Three mountains were set in front of the child and a biddy was placed in different lay around the table. Photographs, which had been taken, were then shown to the child and they were asked to point to the picture that the doll would see.As Piagets findings showed that most four or five year olds pointed to photographs which represented their view of the mountains he concluded that they were egocentric. Most children aged sevener that was asked to do the same task justly identified the photograph strengthening Piagets theory. Although it was then argued by Martin Hughes (1975) that the task was oftentimes too complicated for the child and wherefore devised his own experiment, which would contradict Piagets findings.His experiment involved a model with deuce intersecting walls, cardinal patrolman figures and a figure of a boy. After having a trial using one police figure and the boy to ensure the child understood the task Hughes began his experiment. It was found that most children could successfully take account of two different viewpoints. Therefore it could be tell that Piagets experiment may have been too difficult for the child to understand rather than the child being egocentric.