ABSTRACT
According to Meadows (1993, 1995), cognitive development is concerned with the study of ‘the child as thinker’. However, different theoretical accounts of how the child’s thinking develops rest on very different images of what the child is like: Piaget sees the child as an organism adapting to its environment, as well as a scientist
constructing its own understanding of the world Vygotsky, in contrast with Piaget, sees the child as a participant in an interactive process,
by which socially and culturally determined knowledge and understanding gradually become individualised
Bruner, like Vygotsky, emphasises the social aspects of the child’s cognitive development (see Gross, 2005). Some years ago, Piaget’s theory was regarded as the major framework or paradigm
within child development. Despite remaining a vital source of influence and inspiration, both in psychology and education, today there are hardly any ‘orthodox’ Piagetians left (Dasen, 1994). Many fundamental aspects of Piaget’s theory have been challenged, and fewer and fewer developmental psychologists now subscribe to his or other ‘hard’ stage theories (Durkin, 1995). Nonetheless, Piaget’s is still the most comprehensive account of how children come to understand the world (Schaffer, 2004). Arguably, however, it was a little too ‘cold’ – that is, concerned with purely intellectual functions that supposedly can be studied separately from socio-emotional functions. Vygotsky tried to redress the balance (Schaffer, 2004).
