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Zone of Proximal Development: Scaffolding

The document discusses stages of cognitive development in children, including vague syncretic, complex, potential, and mature concept stages. It highlights Vygotsky's zone of proximal development, which emphasizes the importance of social context and adult guidance in enhancing children's cognitive skills. Additionally, the concept of scaffolding is introduced, detailing how knowledgeable individuals support children's learning and gradually reduce assistance as their skills improve.

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20 views1 page

Zone of Proximal Development: Scaffolding

The document discusses stages of cognitive development in children, including vague syncretic, complex, potential, and mature concept stages. It highlights Vygotsky's zone of proximal development, which emphasizes the importance of social context and adult guidance in enhancing children's cognitive skills. Additionally, the concept of scaffolding is introduced, detailing how knowledgeable individuals support children's learning and gradually reduce assistance as their skills improve.

Uploaded by

Charu 6459
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

374 Part 4 Developmental Psychology ✦ Section 10 Cognitive Development

Can you relate any, or all, of these 1. Vague syncretic stage: the children failed to use systematic strategies and showed
stages to some of the Piagetian little or no understanding of the concepts.
concepts you read about earlier? 2. Complex stage: non-random strategies were used, but these strategies were not
successful in finding the main features of each concept.
3. Potential concept stage: systematic strategies were used, but they were limited to
focusing on one feature at a time (e.g., shape).
4. Mature concept stage: systematic strategies relating to more than one feature at a
time were used, and led to successful concept formation.

Zone of proximal development


One of the key notions in Vygotsky’s approach to cognitive development is the zone of
proximal development. This was defined by Vygotsky (1978, p.86) as

the distance between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem
solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem solving
under adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers.

In other words, children who seem to lack certain skills when tested on their own may
perform more effectively in the social context provided by someone with the necessary
knowledge. Skills shown in the social situation but not the isolated one fall within the
zone of proximal development.

Scaffolding
Wood, Bruner, and Ross (1976) developed Vygotsky’s notion of a zone of proximal
development. They introduced the concept of scaffolding, which refers to the context
provided by knowledgeable people such as adults to help children to develop their
cognitive skills. An important aspect of scaffolding is that there is a gradual withdrawal
of support as the child’s knowledge and confidence increase.
Moss (1992) reviewed a number of studies concerned with the scaffolding provided
by mothers during the preschool period. There were three main aspects to the mothers’
scaffolding strategies. First, the mother instructed her child in new skills that the child
could not use on its own. Second, the mother encouraged her child to maintain useful
problem solving tactics that it had shown spontaneously. Third, the mother tried to
persuade the child to discard immature and inappropriate forms of behaviour.

Left to his own devices, could


this boy make his sister a birthday
cake? His mother uses scaffolding
to create a situation in which he
can begin to move into a zone of
proximal development.

Language development
Vygotsky attached great importance to the development of language. He argued that
language and thought are essentially unrelated during the first stage of development. As
a result, young children have “pre-intellectual speech” and “pre-verbal thought”. During
the second stage, language and thought develop in parallel, and continue to have very

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