L. S. Vygotsky

Russian born developmental psychologist L.S. Vygotsky (1896-1934) emphasized the role of external influences on learning and the ability of teachers to enhance and advance student understanding through his Zone of Proximal Development, whereby teachers bridge the gaps in the students experience and use scaffolding to connect concrete and abstract concepts. "What children can do with the assistance of others might be in some sense more indicative of their mental development than what they can do alone" L.S. Vygotsky, (1978). Through extensive scaffolding from adults, children may achieve significantly greater leaps in ability than left to their own curiosity alone.Vygotsky's Social Development Theory was an influence on Arthur Applebee’s The Child’s Concept of a Story as developmental awareness of storytelling conventions over several stages. Vygotsky thought that cooperation out of survival necessity influenced learning more than internal or genetic factors. Tools such as written and verbal speech, numeric symbolism, logical analysis and memory aids are integral to effective communication and fundamental to learning. All these skills are necessarily social and do not rely on internal capacities as much as external experiences and exposure to outside information. He also noted the significance of differentiating between scientific and spontaneous concepts as a means by which children come to categorize specific ideas into general principles.

Adapted from: Crain, W. (2005). Theories of development: Concepts and applications. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Education.