Vygotsky

Social interaction

• The ability to think and reason is 'the outcome of a fundamentally social process' in which cognitive skills develop as the child interacts with other people.
• Children learn through interactions with others - child responds to the world through its actions; society gives meaning to those actions.
• Cognitive development proceeds as the child gradually internalises the meanings provided by these social interactions.
• The child is an apprentice who develops skills and mental tools of the trade.
• Cognitive development comes from the 'interplay between spontaneous, natural development and the social interaction of children with adults and peers.

Language

• Language and thinking develop in parallel to each other; as our ability to use language improves this increases out ability to think and vice versa.
• Language directs and controls our thinking.
• Language splits between these two functions as we develop an abbreviated inner voice for thinking, and a more articulate vocabulary to…