The Zone of Proximal Development Concept - Essay Example

In 1978, Vygotsky’s proposed the zone of proximal development concept, which is a significant concept that describes the dimension of school learning. This concept primarily explores the idea that what children can gain from interacting with others is more indicative of their mental development more than what they can gain when they act alone. Vygotsky (1978) proposed, “that an essential feature of learning is that it creates the zone of proximal development”. This implies that most of the internal development processes are only able to operate effectively when a child interacts with people, in their environment, and socializes with his or her peers.

Therefore, once these processes are fully developed, they become constituents of the child’s independent developmental behavior. Therefore, this paper focuses on describing Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development theory and its role in a child’s cognitive development. It will consider the theory’s contributions and shortcomings in understanding children’s cognitive development. The zone of proximal development concept improves the perception that children learn and develop their cognitive skills via interacting and socializing with other people, in their environment.

Vygotsky agrees with Piaget that children learn cognitive abilities through interacting with their environment. However, he differs from Piaget in that mental development cannot be acquired from socio-cultural factors making his theory referred to as “social constructivism”. Vygotsky considers cognitive development as a socially mediated process. He argues that children are born in societies, which possess certain cultural beliefs and knowledge that are passed from one generation to another through “tools of intellectual adaptations”.

These tools, on the other hand, can be either material (computer, books) or psychological (language). Vygotsky (1978) argues that children’s elementary mental functions are changed to higher mental functions, like reasoning, when they interact with intellectuals and internalize the use of these tools. Researchers have also proved that cultural tools can create different cognitive abilities.