Compare And Contrast Piaget's Theory Of Cognitive Development

heory of cognitive development.

It is one of the most influential theory in cognitive development psychology and it is concerned with the growth of intelligence which Piaget describes as ability to more accurately represent the world and perform logical operations. According to Piaget, cognitive growth occurs through three principles namely organization, adaptation and equilibration. From the time that we are infants we organize our knowledge into mental representations that help us make sense of the world around us. Our representation contains cognitive structures which are known as schemes which become more complex as we grow old.

The next stage which is adaptation occurs when we are dealing with new information. Adaptation occurs in new

Vygotsky focuses on active, goal-setting children in the socio-cultural context. His theory emphasizes on how a child social interaction with adults can help in his learning process. But he is best known for his concept of Zone of proximal development in which he states that for children in the zone of proximal development cannot perform a task on his own but with the right kind of teaching; they can be able to perform it effectively. Thus a good teacher identifies a child’s zone of proximal development and helps him stretch it so that he can be able to perform tasks by himself.

The informational processing approach

It is referred as the neo-Piagetian theory because it extends Piaget’s theory by integrating it with the informational processing approach. This theory argues that children develop cognitively by becoming more efficient at processing information through practise. A child who practises a certain skill that he or she has ends up becoming proficient and it becomes second to nature to him. Hence as a child grows maturation of his neurological processes expands his available memory space.

Language

Psychosexual theory argues that there are five basic stages of each with a different focus. Across the five stages a child faces different conflicts between the biological drives, their social and their moral concepts. He stated that a child’s ability to solve these conflicts determines their future ability to function as a normal adult. Failure to cope on the other hand will lead to one being stuck at one stage leading to personality disorders later in life. Freud’s theory have received criticism from all corners they have been accused of having a narrow focus in that they only concentrate on the mind and ignore other factors such as the environment or culture. His theories have also been criticized for lack of empirical evidence hence leading them to not having scientific