Child Language Acquisition Theorist Piaget & Vygotsky

Piaget's Key Ideas:

Adaptation	adapting to the world through assimilation & accommodation
Assimilation	Translating ideas to your own understanding
Accommodation	Follows assimilation, fitting ideas to your experience of the world
Classification	Grouping based on common characteristics
Class Inclusion	Be able to sub-group under one group
Conservation	The appreciation that perspective & appearance doesn't affect the number
Decentration	Ability to be able to change system of classification appropriately
Egocentrism	A self-centred perspective of the world, a belief that everyone knows what you know
Operation	The process of working something out in your head
Schema (or scheme)	Perception of the world and experiences

Stages of Cognitive Development

Stage	Characterised by
Sensori-motor   (Birth-2 yrs)	Differentiates self from objects  Recognises their ability to act intentionally:  Achieves object permanence: realises that things continue to exist even when no longer present to the sense
Pre-operational (2-7 years)	Learn to use language for own gain Thinking is still egocentric Classifies objects by a single feature
Concrete operational (7-11 years)	Can think logically about objects and events  Achieves conservation of number (age 6), mass (age 7), and weight (age 9)  Classifies objects according to several features
Formal operational (11 years and up)	Can think logically about abstract propositions & test hypotheses systemtically  Becomes concerned with the hypothetical, the future & ideological problems

Vygotsky

Theory that each child has a next step to progress with their learning and that often reaching that next stage requires social interaction.

 "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."