Vygotsky, L. (1978).

Interaction between
learning and development. From: Mind and
Society (pp. 79-91). Cambridge. MA:
Harvard University Press.

REPRINTED IN:

Readings
on the
DeveloplTIent
of
Children

Second Edition

EDITED BY

Mary Gauvain
University of California, Riverside

Michael Cole
University of California, San Diego

I.
W. H. Freeman and Company
New York
 4
Interaction Between Learning
and Developll1ent

LEV s. VYGOTSKY

Editor's Note: Please see the introduction to the previous article on Piaget
for editorial comments on this related paper.

The problems encountered in the psychological Essentially, all current conceptions of the rela-
analysis of teaching cannot be correctly resolved or tion between development and learning in children
even formulated without addressing the relation can be reduced to three major theoretical positions.
between learning and development in school-age The first centers on the assumption that
children. Yet it is the most unclear of all the basic processes of child development are independent of
issues on which the application of child development learning. Learning is considered a purely external
theories to educational processes depends. Needless process that is not actively involved in development.
to say, the lack of theoretical clarity does nor mean It merely utilizes the achievements of development
that the issue is removed altogether from current re- rather than providing an impetus for modifying its
search efforts into learning; not one study can avoid course.
this central theoretical issue. But the relation be- In experimental investigations of the develop-
tween learning and development remains method- ment of thinking in school children, it has been
ologically unclear because concrete research studies assumed that processes such as deduction and under-
have embodied theoretically vague, critically uneval- standing, evolution of notions about the world, in-
uated, and sometimes internally contradictory postu- terpretation of physical causality, and mastery of
lates, premises, and peculiar solutions to the prob- logical forms of thought and abstract logic all occur
lem of this fundamental relationship; and these, of by themselves, without any influence from school
course, result in a variety of errors. learning. An example of such a theory is Piaget's

This article is reprinted with permission of Harvard University Press, from L. s. Vygotsky, 1978,
Mind in Society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 79-91.
30 Introduction

extremely complex and interesting theoretical princi- than by calling it the organization of acquired habits
ples, which also shape the experimental methodol- of conduct and tendencies to behavior."2 Develop-
ogy he employs. The questions Piaget uses in the ment itself is reduced primarily to the accumulation
course of his "clinical conversations" with children of all possible responses. Any acquired response is
clearly illustrate his approach. When a five-year-old considered either a more complex form of or a sub-
is asked "why doesn't the sun fall?" it is assumed stitute for the innate response.
that the child has neither a ready answer for such a But despite the similarity between the first and
question nor the general capabilities for generating second theoretical positions, there is a major dif-
one. The point of asking questions that are so far be- ference in their assumptions about the temporal
yond the reach of the child's intellectual skills is to relationship between learning and developmental
eliminate the influence of previous experience and processes. Theorists who hold the first view assert
knowledge. The experimenter seeks to obtain the that developmental cycles precede learning cycles;
tendencies of children's thinking in "pure" form en- maturation precedes learning and instruction must
tirely independent of learning. l lag behind mental growth. For the second group
Similarly, the classics of psychological literature, of theorists, both processes occur simultaneously;
such as the works by Binet and others, assume that learning and development coincide at all points in
development is always a prerequisite for learning the same way that two identical geometrical figures
and that if a child's mental functions (intellectual op- coincide when superimposed.
erations) have not matured to the extent that he is The third theoretical position on the relation
capable of learning a particular subject, then no in- between learning and development attempts to over-
struction will prove useful. They especially feared come the extremes of the other two by simply com-
premature instruction, the teaching of a subject be- bining them. A clear example of this approach is
fore the child was ready for it. All effort was con- Koffka's theory, in which development is based on
centrated on finding the lower threshold of learning two inherently different but related processes, each
ability, the age at which a particular kind of learn- of which influences the other. 3 On the one hand is
ing first becomes possible. maturation, which depends directly on the develop-
Because this approach is based on the premise ment of the nervous system; on the other hand is
that learning trails behind development, that devel-- learning, which itself is also a developmental process.
opment always outruns learning, it precludes the no- Three aspects of this theory are new. First, as we
tion that learning may play a role in the course of already noted, is the combination of two seemingly
the development or maturation of those functions opposite viewpoints, each of which has been encoun-
activated in the course of learning. Development or tered separately in the history of science. The very
maturation is viewed as a precondition of learning fact that these two viewpoints can be combined into
but never the result of it. To summarize this position: one theory indicates that they are not opposing and
learning forms a superstructure over development, mutually exclusive but have something essential in
leaving the latter essentially unaltered. common. Also new is the idea that the two processes
The second major theoretical position is that that make up development are mutually dependent
learning is development. This identity is the essence and interactive. Of course, the nature of the interac-
of a group of theories that are quite diverse in origin. tion is left virtually unexplored in Koffka's work,
One such theory is based on the concept of re- which is limited solely to very general remarks
flex, an essentially old notion that has been exten- regarding the relation between these two processes.
sively revived recently. Whether reading, writing, or It is clear that for Koffka the process of maturation
arithmetic is being considered, development is prepares and makes possible a specific process of
viewed as the mastery of conditioned reflexes; that learning. The learning process then stimulates and
is, the process of learning is completely and insepa- pushes forward the maturation process. The third
rably blended with the process of development. This and most important new aspect of this theory is the
notion was elaborated by James, who reduced the expanded role it ascribes to learning in child devel-
learning process to habit formation and identified opment. This emphasis leads us directly to an old
the learning process with development. pedagogical problem, that of formal discipline and
Reflex theories have at least one thing in com- the problem of transfer.
mon with theories such as Piaget's: in both, develop- Pedagogical movements that have emphasized
ment is conceived of as the elaboration and substitu- formal discipline and urged the teaching of classical
tion of innate responses. As James expressed it, languages, ancient civilizations, and mathematics
"Education, in short, cannot be better described have assumed that regardless of the irrelevance of
 Interaction Between Learning and Development 31

these particular subjects for daily living, they were display better abilities regarding, for example, the
of the greatest value for the pupil's mental devel- estimation of the weight of objects. In the same way,
opment. A variety of studies have called into ques- speed and accuracy in adding numbers are entirely
tion the soundness of this idea. It has been shown unrelated to speed and accuracy in being able to
that learning in 'one area has very little influence on think up antonyms.
overall development. For example, reflex theorists This research shows that the mind is not a com-
Woodworth and Thorndike found that adults who, plex network of general capabilities such as obser-
after special exercises, had achieved considerable vation, attention, memory, judgment, and so forth,
success in determining the length of short lines, had but a set of specific capabilities, each of which is,
made virtually no progress in their ability to deter- to some extent, independent of the others and is
mine the length of long lines. These same adults developed independently. Learning is more than the
were successfully trained to estimate the size of a acquisition of the ability to think; it is the acquisi-
given two-dimensional figure, but this training did tion of many specialized abilities for thinking about
not make them successful in estimating the size of a a variety of things. Learning does not alter our over-
series of other two-dimensional figures of various all ability to focus attention but rather develops vari-
sizes and shapes. ous abilities to focus attention on a variety of things.
According to Thorndike, theoreticians in psy- According to this view, special training affects over-
chology and education believe that every particular all development only when its elements, material,
response acquisition directly enhances overall ability and processes are similar across specific domains;
in equal measure. 4 Teachers believed and acted on habit governs us. This leads to the conclusion that
the basis of the theory that the mind is a complex of because each activity depends on the material with
abilities-powers of observation, attention, memory, which it operates, the development of consciousness
thinking, and so forth-and that any improvement is the development of a set of particular, independent
in any specific ability results in a general improve- capabilities or of a set of particular habits. Improve-
ment in all abilities. According to this theory, if the ment of one function of consciousness or one aspect
student increased the attention he paid to Latin of its activity can affect the development of another
grammar, he would increase his abilities to focus at- only to the extent that there are elements common to
tention on any task. The words "accuracy," "quick- both functions or activities.
wittedness," "ability to reason," "memory," "power Developmental theorists such as Koffka and the
of observation," "attention," "concentration," and Gestalt School-who hold to the third theoretical
so forth are said to denote actual fundamental capa- position outlined earlier-oppose Thorndike's point
bilities that vary in accordance with the material of view. They assert that the influence of learning is
with which they operate; these basic abilities are never specific. From their study of structural princi-
substantially modified by studying particular sub- ples, they argue that the learning process can never
jects, and they retain these modifications when they be reduced simply to the formation of skills but em-
turn to other areas. Therefore, if someone learns to bodies an intellectual order that makes it possible to
do any single thing well, he will also be able to do transfer general principles discovered in solving one
other entirely unrelated things well as a result of task to a variety of other tasks. From this point of
some secret connection. It is assumed that mental view, the child, while learning a particular opera-
capabilities function independently of the material tion, acquires the ability to create structures of a
with which they operate, and that the development certain type, regardless of the diverse materials with
of one ability entails the development of others. which she is working and regardless of the particu-
Thorndike himself opposed this point of view. lar elements involved. Thus, Koffka does not con-
Through a variety of studies he showed that partic- ceive of learning as limited to a process of habit and
ular forms of activity, such as spelling, are depen- skill acquisition. The relationship he posits between
dent on the mastery of specific skills and material learning and development is not that of an identity
necessary for the performance of that particular but of a more complex relationship. According to
task. The development of one particular capability Thorndike, learning and development coincide at all
seldom means the development of others. Thorndike points, but for Koffka, development is always a
argued that specialization of abilities is even greater larger set than learning. Schematically, the relation-
than superficial observation may indicate. For exam- ship between the two processes could be depicted by
ple, if, out of a hundred individuals we choose ten two concentric circles, the smaller symbolizing the
who display the ability to detect spelling errors or to learning process and the larger the developmental
measure lengths, it is unlikely that these ten will process evoked by learning.
32 Introduction

Once a child has learned to perform an opera- assume that the difference between preschool and
tion, he thus assimilates some structural principle school learning consists of non-systematic learning
whose sphere of application is other than just the in one case and systematic learning in the other. But
operations of the type on whose basis the principle "systematicness" is not the only issue; there is also
was assimilated. Consequently, in making one step the fact that school learning introduces something
in learning, a child makes two steps in development, fundamentally new into the child's development. In
that is, learning and development do not coincide. order to elaborate the dimensions of school learning,
This concept is the essential aspect of the third we will describe a new and exceptionally important
group of theories we have discussed. concept without which the issue cannot be resolved:
the zone of proximal development.
A well known and empirically established fact is
ZONE OF PROXIMAL DEVELOPMENT: that learning should be matched in some manner
A NEW APPROACH with the child's developmental level. For example, it
has been established that the teaching of reading,
Although we reject aU three theoretical positions dis- writing, and arithmetic should be initiated at a spe-
cussed above, analyzing them leads us to a more ad- cific age level. Only recently, however, has attention
equate view of the relation between learning and de- been directed to the fact that we cannot limit our-
velopment. The question to be framed in arriving at selves merely to determining developmental levels if
a solution to this problem is complex. It consists of we wish to discover the actual relations of the devel-
two separate issues: first, the general relation be- opmental process to learning capabilities. We must
tween learning and development; and second, the determine at least two developmental levels.
specific features of this relationship when children The first level can be called the actual develop-
reach school age. mental level, that is, the level of development of a
That children's learning begins long before they child's mental functions that has been established as
attend school is the starting point of this discussion. a result of certain already completed developmental
Any learning a child encounters in school always has cycles. When we determine a child's mental age by
a previous history. For example, children begin to using tests, we are almost always dealing with the
study arithmetic in school, but long beforehand they actual developmental level. In studies of children's
have had some experience with quantity-they have mental development it is generally assumed that
had to deal with operations of division, addition, only those things that children can do on their own
subtraction, and determination of size. Consequently, are indicative of mental abilities. We give children
children have their own preschool arithmetic, which a battery of tests or a variety of tasks of varying
only myopic psychologists could ignore. degrees of difficulty, and we judge the extent of
It goes without saying that learning as it occurs their mental development on the basis of how they
in the preschool years differs markedly from school solve them and at what level of difficulty. On the
learning, which is concerned with the assimilation of other hand, if we offer leading questions or show
the fundamentals of scientific knowledge. But even how the problem is to be solved and the child then
when, in the period of her first questions, a child as- solves it, or if the teacher initiates the solution and
similates the names of objects in her environment, the child completes it or solves it in collaboration
she is learning. Indeed, can it be doubted that chil- with other children-in short, if the child barely
dren learn speech from adults; or that, through ask- misses an independent solution of the problem-
ing questions and giving answers, children acquire a the solution is not regarded as indicative of his men-
variety of information; or that, through imitating tal development. This "truth" was familiar and re-
adults and through being instructed about how to inforced by common sense. Over a decade even the
act, children develop an entire repository of skills? profoundest thinkers never questioned the assump-
Learning and development are interrelated from the tion; they never entertained the notion that what
child's very first day of life. children can do with the assistance of others might
Koffka, attempting to clarify the laws of child be in some sense even more indicative of their men-
learning and their relation to mental development, tal development than what they can do alone.
concentrates his attention on the simplest learning Let us take a simple example. Suppose I investi-
processes, those that occur in the preschool years. gate two children upon entrance into school, both
His error is that, while seeing a similarity between of whom are ten years old chronologically and eight
preschool and school learning, he fails to discern the years old in terms of mental development. Can I say
difference-he does not see the specifically new ele- that they are the same age mentally? Of course.
ments that school learning introduces. He and others What does this mean? It means that they can inde-
 Interaction Between Learning and Development 33

pendently deal with tasks up to the degree of diffi- state. These functions could be termed the "buds" or
culty that has been standardized for the eight-year- "flowers" of development rather than the "fruits" of
old level. If I stop at this point, people would imagine development. The actual developmental level charac-
that the subsequent course of mental development terizes mental development retrospectively, while the
and of school learning. for these children will be the zone of proximal development characterizes mental
same, because it depends on their intellect. Of development prospectively.
course, there may be other factors, for example, if The zone of proximal development furnishes
one child was sick for half a year while the other was psychologists and educators with a tool through
never absent from school; but generally speaking, which the internal course of development can be un-
the fate of these children should be the same. Now derstood. By using this method we can take account
imagine that I do not terminate my study at this of not only the cycles and maturation processes that
point, but only begin it. These children seem to be have already been completed but also those pro-
capable of handling problems up to an eight-year- cesses that are currently in a state of formation, that
old's level, but not beyond that. Suppose that I show are just beginning to mature and develop. Thus, the
them various ways of dealing with the problem. zone of proximal development permits us to de-
Different experimenters might employ different lineate the child's immediate future and his dynamic
modes of demonstration in different cases: some developmental state, allowing not only for what
might run through an entire demonstration and ask already has been achieved developmentally but also
the children to repeat it, others might initiate the so- for what is in the course of maturing. The two chil-
lution and ask the child to finish it, or offer leading dren in our example displayed the same mental age
questions. In short, in some way or another I propose from the viewpoint of developmental cycles already
that the children solve the problem with my assis- completed, but the developmental dynamics of the
tance. Under these circumstances it turns out that the two were entirely different. The state of c1 child's
first child can deal with problems up to a twelve- mental development can be determined only by clari-
year-old's level, the second up to a nine-year-old's. fying its two levels: the actual developmental level
Now, are these children mentally the same? and the zone of proximal development.
When it was first shown that the capability of I will discuss one study of preschool children to
children with equal levels of mental development to demonstrate that what is in the zone of proximal de-
learn under a teacher's guidance varied to a high velopment today will be the actual developmental
degree, it became apparent that those children were level tomorrow-that is, what a child can do with
not mentally the same age and that the subsequent assistance today she will be able to do by herself
course of their learning would obviously be dif- tomorrow.
ferent. This difference between twelve and eight, or The American researcher Dorothea McCarthy
between nine and eight, is what we call the zone of showed that among children between the ages of
proximal development. It is the distance between the three and five there are two groups of functions:
actual developmental level as determined by in- those the children already possess, and those they
dependent problem solving and the level of potential can perform under guidance, in groups, and in col-
development as determined through problem solving laboration with one another but which they have
under adult guidance or in collaboration with more not mastered independently. McCarthy's study
capable peers. demonstrated that this second group of functions is
If we naively ask what the actual developmental at the actual developmental level of five-to-seven-
level is, or, to put it more simply, what more inde- year-olds. What her subjects could do only under
pendent problem solving reveals, the most common guidance, in collaboration, and in groups at the age
answer would be that a child's actual developmental of three-to-five years they could do independently
level defines functions that have already matured, when they reached the age of five-to-seven years. s
that is, the end products of development. If a child Thus, if we were to determine only mental age-
can do such-and-such independently, it means that that is, only functions that have matured-we
the functions for such-and-such have matured in her. would have but a summary of completed develop-
What, then, is defined by the zone of proximal de- ment while if we determine the maturing functions,
velopment, as determined through problems that we can predict what will happen to these children
children cannot solve independently but only with between five and seven, provided the same develop-
assistance? The zone of proximal development de- mental conditions are maintained. The zone of prox-
fines those functions that have not yet matured but imal development can become a powerful concept
are in the process of maturation, functions that will in developmental research, one that can markedly
mature tomorrow but are currently in an embryonic enhance the effectiveness and utility of the applica-
34 Introduction

tion of diagnostics of mental development to educa- adults. This fact, which seems to be of little signifi-
tional problems. cance in itself, is of fundamental importance in that
A full understanding of the concept of the zone it demands a radical alteration of the entire doctrine
of proximal development must result in reevaluation concerning the relation between learning and devel-
of the role of imitation in learning. An unshakable opment in children. One direct consequence is a
tenet of classical psychology is that only the indepen- change in conclusions that may be drawn from diag-
dent activity of children, not their imitative 'activity, nostic tests of development.
indicates their level of mental development. This Formerly, it was believed that by using tests, we
view is expressed in all current testing systems. In determine the mental development level with which
evaluating mental development, consideration is education should reckon and whose limits it should
given to only those solutions to test problems which not exceed. This procedure oriented learning toward
the child reaches without the assistance of others, yesterday'S development, toward developmental
without demonstrations, and without leading ques- stages already completed. The error of this view was
tions. Imitation and learning are thought of as discovered earlier in practice than in theory. It is
purely mechanical processes. But recently psycholo- demonstrated most clearly in the teaching of men-
gists have shown that a person can imitate only that tally retarded children. Studies have established that
which is within her developmental level. For exam- mentally retarded children are not very capable of
ple, if a child is having difficulty with a problem in abstract thinking. From this the pedagogy of the spe-
arithmetic and the teacher solves it on the black- cial school drew the seemingly correct conclusion
board, the child may grasp the solution in an that all teaching of such children should be based on
instant. But if the teacher were to solve a problem in the use of concrete, look-and-do methods. And yet a
higher mathematics, the child would not be able to considerable amount of experience with this method
understand the solution no matter how many times resulted in profound disillusionment. It turned out
she imitated it. that a teaching system based solely on concrete-
Animal psychologists, and in particular Kohler, ness-one that eliminated from teaching everything
have dealt with this question of imitation quite associated with abstract thinking-not only failed to
well. 6 Kohler's experiments sought to determine help retarded children overcome their innate handi-
whether primates are capable of graphic thought. caps but also reinforced their handicaps by accus-
The principal question was whether primates solved toming children exclusively to concrete thinking and
problems independently or whether they merely imi- thus suppressing the rudiments of any abstract
tated solutions they had seen performed earlier, for thought that such children still have. Precisely be-
example, watching other animals or humans use cause retarded children, when left to themselves, will
sticks and other tools and then imitating them. never achieve well-elaborated forms of abstract
Kohler's special experiments, designed to determine thought, the school should make every effort to push
what primates could imitate, reveal that primates them in that direction and to develop in them what
can use imitation to solve only those problems that is intrinsically lacking in their own development. In
are of the same degree of difficulty as those they can the current practices of special schools for retarded
solve alone. However, Kohler failed to take account children, we can observe a beneficial shift away from
of an important fact, namely, that primates cannot this concept of concreteness, one that restores look-
be taught (in the human sense of the word) through and-do methods to their proper role. Concreteness is
imitation, nor can their intellect be developed, be- now seen as necessary and unavoidable only- as a
cause they have no zone of proximal development. A stepping stone for developing abstract thinking-as
primate can learn a great deal through training by a means, not as an end in itself.
using its mechanical and mental skills, but it cannot Similarly, in normal children, learning which is
be made more intelligent, that is, it cannot be taught oriented toward developmental levels that have al-
to solve a variety of more advanced problems inde- ready been reached is ineffective from the viewpoint
pendently. For this reason animals are incapable of of a child's overall development. It does not aim for
learning in the human sense of the term; human a new stage of the developmental process but rather
learning presupposes a specific social nature and a lags behind this process. Thus, the notion of a zone
process by which children grow into the intellectual of proximal development enables us to propound a
life of those around them. new formula, namely that the only "good learning"
Children can imitate a variety of actions that go is that which is in advance of development.
well beyond the limits of their own capabilities. The acquisition of language can provide a para-
Using imitation, children are capable of doing much digm for the entire problem of the relation between
more in collective activity or under the guidance of learning and development. Language arises initially
 Interaction Between Learning and Development 35

as a means of communication between the child and view that at the moment a child assimilates the mean-
the people in his environment. Only subsequently, ing of a word, or masters an operation such as addi-
upon conversion to internal speech, does it come tion or written language, her developmental processes
to organize the child's thought, that is, become an are basically completed. In fact, they have only just
internal mental functton. Piaget and others have begun at that moment. The major consequence of an-
shown that reasoning occurs in a children's group alyzing the educational process in this manner is to
as an argument intended to prove one's own point of show that the initial mastery of, for example, the four
view before it occurs as an internal activity whose arithmetic operations provides the basis for the subse-
distinctive feature is that the child begins to perceive quent development of a variety of highly complex in-
and check the basis of his thoughts. Such observa- ternal processes in children's thinking.
tions prompted Piaget to conclude that communica- Our hypothesis establishes the unity but not the
tion produces the need for checking and confirming identity of learning processes and internal devel-
thoughts, a process that is characteristic of adult opmental processes. It presupposes that the one is
thought'? In the same way that internal speech and converted into the other. Therefore, it becomes an
reflective thought arise from the interactions be- important concern of psychological research to show
tween the child and persons in her environment, how external knowledge and abilities in children
these interactions provide the source of develop- become internalized.
ment of a child's voluntary behavior. Piaget has Any investigation explores some sphere of reality.
shown that cooperation provides the basis for the An aim of the psychological analysis of development
development of a child's moral judgment. Earlier re- is to describe the internal relations of the intellectual
search established that a child first becomes able to processes awakened by school learning. In this re-
subordinate her behavior to rules in group play and spect, such analysis will be directed inward and is
only later does voluntary self-regulation of behavior analogous to the use of x-rays. If successful, it should
arise as an internal function. reveal to the teacher how developmental processes
These individual examples illustrate a general stimulated by the course of school learning are carried
developmental law for the higher mental functions through inside the head of each individual child. The
that we feel can be applied in its entirety to chil- revelation of trus internal, subterranean developmen-
dren's learning processes. We propose that an essen- tal network of school subjects is a task of primary im-
tial feature of learning is that it creates the zone of portance for psychological and educational analysis.
proximal development; that is, learning awakens a A second essential feature of our hypothesis is
variety of internal developmental processes that are the notion that, although learning is directly related
able to operate only when the child is interacting to the course of child development, the two are
with people in his environment and in cooperation never accomplished in equal measure or in parallel.
with his peers. Once these processes are internalized, Development in children never follows school learn-
they become part of the child's independent develop- ing the way a shadow follows the object that casts it.
mental achievement. In actuality, there are highly complex dynamic rela-
From this point of view, learning is not devel- tions between developmental and learning processes
opment; however, properly organized learning re- that cannot be encompassed by an unchanging hypo-
sults in mental development and sets in motion a thetical formulation.
variety of developmental processes that would be Each school subject has its own specific relation
impossible apart from learning. Thus, learning is a to the course of child development, a relation that
necessary and universal aspect of the process of de- varies as the child goes from one stage to another.
veloping culturally organized, specifically human, This leads us directly to a reexamination of the prob-
psychological functions. lem of formal discipline, that is, to the significance of
To summarize, the most essential feature of our each particular subject from the viewpoint of overall
hypothesis is the notion that developmental processes mental development. Clearly, the problem cannot be
do not coincide with learning processes. Rather, the solved by using anyone formula; extensive and
developmental process lags behind the learning highly diverse concrete research based on the con-
process; this sequence then results in zones of proxi- cept of the zone of proximal development is neces-
mal development. Our analysis alters the traditional sary to resolve the issue.
36 Introduction

Questions
1. Consider the three theoretical views that, 3. 1£ you were to design a new IQ test based
according to Vygotsky, have attempted to explain on Vygotsky's ideas of the zone of proximal
the relation between development and learning. development, what would it be like? How might a
Why does Vygotsky consider these unsatisfactory child's score on such a test be used to organize his
for explaining this relation? or her experiences in school?
2. What is the zone of proximal development?
According to Vygotsky, what role does it play in
learning and what role does it play in cognitive
development?

Notes
1. J. Piager, The Language and Thought of the Child (New 5. Dorothea McCarthy, The Language Development of the
York: Meridian Books, 1955). Pre-school Child (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota
Press, 1930).
2. William James, Talks to Teachers (New York: Norron,
1958), pp. 36-37. 6. W. Kohler, The Mentality of Apes (New York: Harcourt,
Brace, 1925).
3. Koffka, The Growth of the Mind (London: Routledge
and Kegan Paul, 1924). 7. Piaget, Language and Thought.
4. E. L. Thorndike, The Psychology of Learning (New York:
Teachers College Press, 1914).