Lauren Fowler-Carter

Reflective PaperLearning and Development Cognitive Theory

According to Cherry (n.d.), Jean Piaget has created the foundation that has allowed a

number of instructional strategies to be developed from his work. Critics have stated that the

children that Piaget used in his studies were from families that were well-educated and of a high

social class (Cherry). It is argued that since his subjects were of a high social class, that “it is

difficult to generalize his findings to a larger population” (Cherry). Another criticism that Cherry

(n.d.) discusses is that children may not be as egocentric as Piaget once believed them to be.

There has been children within the ‘me stage’ of development that have shown a “sophisticated

understanding of their own mental processes as well as those of other people” (Cherry).

Another criticism toward Piaget’s stages of development is that Piaget states that children

show characteristics when they are in the specific stages, but there are children that may hold

onto a trait past the categorized stage or not show a dominant characteristic in a current stage

(Driscoll, 2005, p. 203). This critique shows how all the rules of development that Piaget

discusses do not apply in every situation. Jerome Bruner has a different theory of the stages of

development for children. Bruner’s three modes of representation are enactive, iconic, and

symbolic. “Bruner, in contrast to Piaget, believed in the invariant sequence of stage through

which children pass but not in their age dependency” (Driscoll, 2005, p. 230). According to

Driscoll (2005), “adults may require practice with iconic forms before they can understand and

use a symbolic mode of representation”; they needing certain amounts of motor skill and action

before they develop their actions. (p. 231). One of the main concepts that Vygotsky brought forth

was the zone of proximal development. He discovered this concept by presenting children with

tasks that were beyond their capabilities (Driscoll, 2005, p. 253). By doing so, Vygotsky was

able to reveal the gap between the child’s “’actual developmental level as determined by

Lauren Fowler-Carter

independent problem solving’ and the higher level of ‘potential development as determined

through problem solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers’”

(Driscoll, 2005, p. 253).

Lauren Fowler-Carter

ReferencesCherry, K. (n.d.). Support and Criticism of Piaget's Stages Theory. Retrieved October 10, 2011,

from About.Com: Psychology:

http://psychology.about.com/od/piagetstheory/p/piagetcriticism.htm

Driscoll, M. P. (2005). Psychology of Learning for Instruction (3rd ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson

Education, Inc.