The Role Of Language In Childrens Cognitive

Development Education Essay

PRINT REFERENCE THIS
Disclaimer: This work has been submitted by a student. This is not an example of the
work written by our professional academic writers. You can view samples of our
professional work here.

Any opinions, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material

are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of UK Essays.

Published: Mon, 5 Dec 2016

Vygotsky described developmental changes in children’s thinking in terms of cultural

tools; they use these to make sense of their world. Generally, they use technical tools
to change objects or gain mastery over the environment. Moreover, they used
psychological tools to organise behavior or thought. According to Vygotsky’s view,
society shapes a child’s mind through the transmission of tools which are appropriate
for their culture. Both the culture and the child’s experiences are necessary to
understand children’s cognitive development (“Social Development Theory,” n.d.)

Vygotsky’s theory was an attempt to explain awareness the product of socialization.

For example, in the learning of language or first words, peers or adults are noticing
the first utterance and the purpose of communication but after they recognize that
they become internalized and allow “inner speech” (Bransford, Brown, & Cocking,
2000).

Vygotsky believed that language was one of the most important psychological tools
that effects children’s cognitive development. He identified that there are three
different stages in the children’s use of language. Firstly, language is an essential
factor for communication (social speech). Next, children begin to use egocentric or
private speech to control their own thinking. The last stage is language development.
Children use verbal thoughts to guide what they are thinking and their actions.
(referance).

Vygotsky also believed that language and thought first become independent after
them being interdependent. He suggested that attainment of a new word was the
beginning of the development of a concept. This is supported by a classic study by
Carmichael (1932) who gave participants one of two labels for certain drawings. A
kidney shape was described either kidney bean or canoe. Following that participants
were asked to draw the shape. If the drawing was different form their label according
to which label they had been given. As a result of this words can help us to
remember things.
On the other hand, Sinclair- de -Zward (1969) tried to teach children who could not
use comparative terms that were not in their vocabulary. (p116). Such as, bigger or
shorter, she found that there was very little improvement in their ability to conserve.

The major theme of Vygotsky’s theoretical framework is that social interaction plays a
fundamental role in the development of cognition. Vygotsky (1978) states: “Every
function in the child’s cultural development appears twice: first, on the social level,
and later, on the individual level; first, between people (interpsychological) and then
inside the child (intrapsychological). This applies equally to voluntary attention, to
logical memory, and to the formation of concepts. All the higher functions originate
as actual relationships between individuals.” (p57).

Moreover, Vygotsky also identified three concepts in particular for cognitive

development to proceed effectively. “The zone of proximal development is the
distance between what children can do by themselves and the next learning that they
can be helped to achieve with competent assistance” (Raymond, 2000, p.176). The
scaffolding teaching strategy provides individualized support based on the learner’s
ZPD (Chang, Sung, & Chen, 2002).

The first is the Zone of proximal development. This zone describes the range of
difficult tasks or it is very hard for the learners complete this task alone. However,
learners can complete this task with appropriate assistance or someone who is more
knowledgeable. Thus according to Vygotsky, cognitive development will occur when
a learner is confronted by a task that lies within the zone, if a task is easy to complete
for task learners then no cognitive development will occur. Also if the task is too hard
for a learner to complete the task alone or even with assistance then no cognitive
development will occur. (Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, 2000).

Evidence for ZPD was produced by McNaughton and Leyland (1990). They observed
young children working with their mothers on jigsaw puzzles of increasing difficulty
and then after one week the child was working on their own. The children reached
higher difficulty when working with their mother. Thus it is explaining their ZPD. The
Zone of Proximal Development was related to a kind of scaffolding which is used by
the mothers. The mothers were worried about keeping their child on task. During this
time generally mothers were focused on helping the children solve the puzzle for
themselves,

Previous studies looked at middle- income families. Researchers suggested that

using different ZPD “region of sensitivity to instruction,” this term using for mothers
and preschoolers in a copying task and it is help to predict children’s subsequent
skills on this task. Furthermore, researchers found some differences in how well
mothers change their level of encouragement style based on the child’s performance
(“i.e., providing less support after the child succeeded and more support after failure”
and these differences were also helping to predict a children’s ability to gain
understanding and learn information . (Wood et al., 1976; Wood & Middleton, 1975).

The second concept is that the scaffolding which describes the nature of the
assistantce given by the more knowledgeable person. In this time the learner
completes the task with the Zone of Proximal development (with assistance). Infant’s
cognitive development depends on the assistance level. If the assistance is great at
first and then it is slightly reduced as the learner’s skill improves, ultimately, the
learner will be able to complete the task but the cognitive development will only
continue if the task is replaced with another task or a more complex task which is
modified to the new zone. (Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, 2000).

Vygotsky defined scaffolding instruction as the “role of teachers and others in

supporting the learner’s development and providing support structures to get to that
next stage or level” (Raymond, 2000, p. 176).An important aspect of scaffolding
instruction is that the scaffolds are temporary. As the learner’s abilities increase the
scaffolding provided by the more knowledgeable other is progressively withdrawn.
Finally the learner is able to complete the task or master the concepts independently
(Chang, Sung, & Chen, 2002, p. 7). Therefore, the goal of the teacher when using the
scaffolding teaching technique is for the student to become an independent and
self- regulating learner and problem solver (Hartman, 2002).

There is one study which examined the relation of maternal scaffolding and
children’s attention regulation abilities in preschool children from low-income
families within the context of a parent-child interaction task and in a child-alone task.
According to this maternal scaffolding behaviors are different between mothers of
children with attention regulation skills. For example, whose children show poor
attention regulation skills, it emerges that parent and child interactions are more
likely to engage verbally with their children, more strategic questions, “verbal hints
and verbal prompt” (Olson and Platt, 2000, p.180).

The amount of children’s attention regulation skills is related to the mothers level of
scaffolding to predict child performance when they are alone to complete a task.
Attention regulation skills are also related to independent performance when
contexts including high maternal scaffolding. Findings provide important information
parents promote attention regulation skills in children especially who are at risk for
poor academic outcomes (Blair, 2002; Sethi, Mischel, Aber, Shoda, & Rodriguez,
2000).

The current study focused on a parent-child puzzle matching task to understand how
children regulate their attention process when with their mother and when alone.
How specific mothers behavior are related to children’s abilities to understand to
regulate their own behavior and transfer these abilities to independent tasks.
Researchers especially focused on verbal behaviors of mothers which are related to
children’s attention regulation skills. (Norman, Breznitz, 1992)

Researchers have focused on different socioeconomic status’ in families. An empirical

research has exposed that there has been significant differences in interactional
characteristics in families of different socioeconomic levels (Gottfried, 1984; Hart &
Risley, 1992, 1995; Heath, 1989). According to research results show that different
socioeconomic status’ has been shown to influence the nature parent-child
interactions.

Another research was done by Wood (1976) who observed children aged 4-5 who
were working with their mother on problem solving tasks. Some mothers gave verbal
encouragement and others more specific help including demonstrations of what to
do. The most effective strategy was combined both general and specific instructions,
the mother was adapting to the learner’s achievement and failures. The mother gave
instructions when the learner had difficulty but mothers gave general
encouragement when the child was coping well.

Kopp (1987) reported that specific types of control technique used by caregivers
affected children’s self regulation skills. For instance, middle income families who
encouraged their children to be independen,t their children were more likely to have
low rate on impulsivity, problems of cconcentration and hyperactivity, and high on
self-control measures.

Similarly, Grolnick and Ryan (1989) have found that high levesl of parental support of
independence was associated with more self regulation and they are more likely to
less acting behavior. Based on these studies, the amount of caregiver control affects
child’s behavior and it is also related to children’s self- regulation abilities. When
children get older parents give their children a number of responsibilities for
example, children become independent regulators of their own thinking processes.
According to Vygotsky (1978) view of socio-cognitive transaction makes it easy to
improve children’s cognitive development is the ability to become same structure
situation like an adults, it is depends to the child’s ability levels.

The third concept is psychological tools give another reason that “social interaction”
is an essential factor in cognitive development. Psychological tools are “intellectual
mechanisms or operations” which people use to examine their environment and
interact with others. Here is some examples of psychological tools “written language,
symbols, maps and scientific method and oral language” (Gredler and Shields, 2004).

Evaluation of Vygotsky’s theory; There has been very little empirical investigation
research on Vygorsky’s theory however there are much more research on Piaget’s
theory. Further limitation relates to Vygotsky’s social emphasis. Whereas Piaget’s give
minimise attention to social influences, Vygotsky’s give too much weight to social
influences. There has been also some strengths, for example, Vygotsky’s approach
provides an association between social and cognitive domains. (Vygotsky, 1978)

There are a number of important distinctions between Piaget’s and Vygotsky’s

theories. The most important ones are that teachers worry about the role of
language and learning in development. But Piaget believed that egocentric speech is
not a useful function in young children’s development. Vygotsky argued that
egocentric speech is the way children recognise and regulate their thoughts and
actions. Piaget claimed that children’s development is limited and it is associated
with what children are able to learn from social experiences (Vygotsky, 1978)

Vygotsky( 1934/1986) disagree with Piaget’s conclusions. Language helps children to

think about mental abilities, behaviors and select courses of action. He believed that
it is the foundation for all higher cognitive processes including controlled attention,
deliberate memorization, recall categorization, planning problem solving, abstract
reasoning and self reflection. Vygotskys view is that children speak themselves for
self guidance. When they get older they find some tasks easier, their self directed
speech isinternalised as salient in inner speech and the internal speech verbal dialogs
people always carry on while thinking and acting in everyday situations. ( Vygotsky,
1986)

To conclude vygotsky’s theory of socio-cultural theory is important to understand

child cognitive development. Especially, he divided into three concepts which gave
more clear information and each zone gives completely different information.
However there have been some negative aspects of this theory, it does not tell how
children internalize social experience to advance their mental functioning. He just
gave a little information about biological contributions to child’s cognition. However,
his theory emphasised cognitive change Vygotsky theory leads up to expect diverse
path of development. ( Vygotsky, 1978)

Cite This Work

To export a reference to this article please select a referencing stye below:
Essays, UK. (November 2013). The Role Of Language In Childrens Cognitive
Development Education Essay. Retrieved from
https://www.ukessays.com/essays/education/the-role-of-language-in-

childrens-cognitive-development-education-essay.php?vref=1 The
importance of
language
development in
early childhood
Developing language skills is of absolute importance for young children’s
success later in life both as social beings and in pursuing an education.

What is language?
I bet you feel no doubt when asked what the word Language means. Yet
most people struggle to come up with a clear and concise definition. That is
because language really is a lot of things! Let’s start with the obvious:

 Language is made up of words combined into sentences.

 Language is used for speaking, reading and writing.
 There are many different languages typically associated with different
countries.

Still that doesn’t quite seem to cover the whole concept of language. For
instance, the same word can be used to very different effect depending on
tone of voice and even facial expressions while talking. Not all languages
are spoken or written, take sign language as an example. More examples
of how much languages can vary in nature include Braille, Programing
Languages and Chinese Characters.

If you are interested in learning more about the science of what makes up
the English language, head over to ASHA.org for the full brief on syntax,
semantics, phonology etc.
For our purpose here though we will stick to a simple idea that language is
the ability to communicate effectively.

We care mainly about the development of language in babies and toddlers,

in our context communication covers everything from crying, to
understanding yes and no (receptive language), to babbling and the
emergence of speech (expressive language).

Read our guide on all the stages of language development

The benefits of healthy language

development
Language is the foundation for all social interactions, having problems to
communicate can cause frustration both for you as a parent, but more
importantly for your child.

The development of language is strongly interdependent with, and

supports, your child’s brain development and cognitive development.
Studies have shown that having a large vocabulary increases creativity and
helps people to come up with new ideas. There are also numerous benefits
to learning more than one language!

In other words, the development of language cannot be viewed in isolation,

but is strongly connected to, and hugely important for, your child’s overall
development during the first years of life.

Promoting a learning friendly environment where you read age appropriate

books, and find ways to play and have fun while teaching, will help
accelerate your toddler’s language acquisition and start preparing him or
her for school. It will also boost overall progress on other developmental
milestones and help provide many more growth opportunities later in life.

Learn more about all the developmental milestones of babies and toddlers
The risks associated with delayed

development
There are serious negative consequences of failing to learn how to
communicate. Luckily the vast majority of people eventually succeed in
acquiring both talking, reading and writing abilities. Even so, if your baby is
showing signs of developmental delay or if your toddler is a late talker,
simply adopting a wait and see attitude could prove to be a mistake.

Research on language and literacy have associated delayed development

with:

 Academic difficulties
 Learning disabilities
 Shyness and social difficulties
 Anxiety disorder
 Behavioral problems and ADHD

If you are concerned that your child is not keeping up with typical
development you should always seek professional help from a pediatrician.

How you can help your child

develop superb language skills

So now you understand the importance of language development in early
childhood, but then what? How can you apply this knowledge in a practical
way to help your young one become a great speaker, a poet, or VP of
Communications?

Glad you asked! Here at ADAM & Mila we are a community of parents,
caregivers and teachers focused on finding great ways to engage our little
ones in fun educational activities.
Did you know that you can start teaching your baby to talk even before he
or she is born? Studies have shown that babies can recognize music and
other sounds that they experience while in the mother’s womb.

Did you know that babies are born with the ability to clearly distinguish
between words of all foreign languages? But that by 12 months old they
have lost this ability as their brain has grown accustomed to focusing only
on the language(s) that the baby is hearing daily.

Understanding how language develops can help you to choose the right
targeted activates that promote and accelerate learning while matching
your child’s current language skills.

https://www.adam-mila.com/importance-language-development-early-
childhood/