Cognitivism

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Cognitivism

Cognitive theory essentially states that children need a cognitive understanding in order to use language. This essentially states that children cannot linguistically articulate what they do not understand.

Theory in practice - verb learning

If you think about when children acquire different verbs and their inflections, the easiest are learned first – the higher complexity, the longer it takes to learn.
- For example, the notion of irregularity of verbs is quite a complex idea, so they are acquired later on in development.

Piaget

Within Piaget’s theory, he states that children start life in a very egocentric way. In other words, they feel that the world revolves around them.
This is supported by the notion of object permanence, which essentially means that when a child cannot see something, to them, it does not exist (they do not grasp the concept of object permanence).
This is often seen when a child starts crying when a primary caregiver moves out of sight.

Vygotsky

Another key cognitive theorist is Vygotsky.
Vygotsky’s theory proposes that there exists a cognitive deficiency – a gap in knowledge. He calls this gap the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) and he states that a More Knowledgeable Other (MKO) is needed to fill the gap.
Vygotsky’s work inspired Bruner to form his LASS.

Challenges to cognitivism

Children who have learning difficulties and cognitive issues still learn to use language even expressing concepts beyond their understanding
Apes share a similar cognitive development as humans in the first years of life, but do not acquire language.