ABSTRACT
One of the most important questions that still remains to be resolved in contemporary developmental psychology concerns the relation between language and thought. In Piaget's theory, thought is not determined by language; rather, changes in cognition are reflected in changes in the structure and complexity of the child's language. Other theorists, notably Vygotsky, suggest that specifically human, "higher men tal processes" are formed by the fusion of language and thinking, a development that occurs in early childhood between the ages of about 2 and 5 years.
