Speech and tools in children’s development and their educational implications
Introduction
The previous literature review highlighted the development of higher psychological processes in children by Vygotsky. Vygotsky included the role played by the adults, teachers, peers and parents in helping children learn. Children have the ability to imitate a greater collective action beyond their own capabilities under adult guidance. We also recognised that children’s intellectual learning is affected by the cognitive consequences of vast social change and the special impact of schooling. Vygotsky emphasised the value of dialogue and the varied roles that language plays in instruction and mediated cognitive growth. The section also made us understand that children’s cognitive psychology developed in a social setting. Thus, all the processes of social interaction, adult guidance and cognitive growth change children’s interpersonal and intrapersonal psychological development.
This section discusses Vygotsky’s notion of speech and the use of tools. Vygotsky claims that the sense-making resources of society are available to children through their participation in the cultural life of the community, specifically their use of artefacts, technologies and rituals in the company of others. These processes of interaction and the use of social tools help to develop children’s cognitive thinking and understanding.
Speech and tools in Children’s Development
Vygotsky argues that the processes of social interaction, communication and the use of tools between the child and the community where they live develops their mental resources. Mental resources is the knowledge that children have gained and their ability to process it for their next endeavour. The notion of a cultural tool refers not only to physical tools and artefacts but also extends to symbolic tools elaborated within a culture. According to Vygotsky, prior to
mastering their own behaviour, children begin to master their surroundings with the help of speech. The creation of these unique human forms of behaviour eventually produces an intellectually productive work: the specifically human way that people use the tools. In his
observations of children, he claims that children not only act in attempting to achieve a goal but also speak. Act here is the action that the child accomplished during the observation when he or she is speaking. These two words are highlighted in italics to show that there were two actions that happened spontaneously when a child was attempting to solve a problem. Their speech arises spontaneously and continues without interruption throughout the experiment. For example, Vygotsky conducted an experiment with his collaborator, R. E. Levina (1938), on children aged four and five-years-old where they had to obtain a piece of candy from a cupboard. The candy was placed out of reach of the child in order that the child could not obtain it easily. He claims that the child obtained the candy by producing “egocentric” speech during the attempts. The speech manifested itself as part of the child’s active striving. Levina wrote134:
“A girl was asked to get candy from a cupboard with a stool and a stick. (Stands on a stool, quietly looking, feeling along a shelf with a stick). ‘On the stool.’ (Glances at
experimenter. Puts stick in other hand.) ‘Is that really the candy?’ (Hesitates.) ‘Can I get it from that other stool, stand and get it.’ (Gets second stool.) ‘No, that doesn’t get it. I could use the stick.’ (take stick, knocks at the candy.) ‘It will move now.’ (Knocks candy.) ‘It moved, I couldn’t get it with the stool, but the, but the stick worked.’”
(Levina, 1938, pp. 105-115)
Levina argues that speech not only accompanies children’s practical activity, but also plays a specific role in carrying it out135. Levina states that the experiment has demonstrated two important facts: Firstly, in attaining the goal, speech to a child is as important as the role of action. They speak about what they are doing, thus speech and action go hand in hand. At the same time, the complex psychological functions of perception, sensory-motor-operations,
134
Cole, M., John-Steiner, V., Scribner, S. and Souberman, E., 1978. L.S. Vygotsky, Mind in Society: the
Development of Higher Psychological Processes, Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press. See Levina, R.E. for
Vygotsky’s ideas on the planning role of speech in children, Voprosi Psikhologii, 14., 1938: pp. 105-115. Although Levina made these observations in the late 1920s, they remain unpublished except for this brief explication.
135 Ibid, p. 25. Originally from R.E. Levina, for Vygotsky’s ideas on the planning role of speech in children, Voprosi
Psikhologii, 14., 1938: pp. 105-115. Although Levina made these observations in the late 1920s, they remain
memory and attention direct the child toward solving the problem at hand. Secondly, in solving the problem, a child voices-out speech that would direct them to the solution. The more
difficulties there are, the more a child depends on speech. Every so often, speech turns out to be so important that younger children cannot accomplish the given task without speaking.
Levina concludes that with the help of speech, and the use of their eyes and hands, children solve practical tasks. The unity of children’s complex psychological functions of perception, speech and action showed the process of internalization of the visual field which establishes the forms of human behaviour. Thus, children include stimuli such as the tools around them and use words to create specific plans, solve problems and execute future actions.
Educational Implications
Vygotsky placed school instruction and learning in advance of children’s cognitive
development. Advance in the sense that children are faced with tasks such as scientific studies, conceptions and the broad sense of educational differences. In schools, children are guided by teachers and more capable peers. The interaction between them creates a “zone of proximal development” because in both contexts, children need social skills and knowledge which they accrue with the help of peers and teachers. For example, in school, children are able to take both the content of what is being taught as well as the role of the teachers. Vygotsky emphasises that teachers are specially trained adults who teach children with care and are focused on the lesson plan. In school, children learn and proceed onto something new such as intellectual analysis, comparison, unification, cooperation and organization of logical relations. A child relates new logical relationships of what he or she listens to from teachers' explanation. Any difficult concepts of learning faced by children are assisted by a rapport with their social environment. The learning process is “everyday” or is a “spontaneous” concept. The child learns something new separate to what they have already known. Consequently, the child spontaneously changes to a new process of internalizing the cognitive relationship to the world. The child is transformed, grasps the basis of learning concepts and lead their lives educatedly.
Conclusion
Children resolve problems with the use of the tools they have. They also search for alternative solutions by referring to the people nearby. More importantly, in solving problems, children speak. Their speech is spontaneous and directed towards the problems. Speech accompanies their action, directed to verbal appeals on the object of attention to achieve their desired goals. The more complex the task is, the more speech is demanded.
Vygotsky’s findings in children’s speech and the use of tools strengthened this study. It demonstrates the logic of children’s higher psychological functions of intermental and intramental processes by using the tools in mediating their activity. Their behaviour of active modification and the stimulus situation formed as part of the response process. This is an important area to be examined in this study - the Dialogue or Talk with the use of technological devices in children. How about children’s text, Talk or Dialogue through the use of the
interactive mobile media? Does text, Talk or Dialogue through the medium of technological devices develop learning concepts in schools? Is the Malaysian educational department aware of the notions of speech that enhance children’s cognitive development? Hence, what type of strategies in teaching and learning should Malaysia look into now to boost children’s cognitive learning.