Theory library

Operant conditioning – B.F. Skinner

Skinner described a type of learning where the child learns through making a response to a stimulus. The child learns through understanding the consequences of the actions they make in making a behavioural response to the stimulus. Where the behaviour increases and the behaviour required is rewarded, it is known as positive reinforcement. For example a child who is learning to use the toilet and uses it appropriately will be praised. This should reinforce in the child the need to learn the skills required.

Negative reinforcement increases a behaviour by removing the source of the problem but can reinforce the negative behaviour. For example, if the child who has a tantrum is ignored, then then child learns that the behaviour will not be rewarded, but if the child is picked up then they are rewarded with attention for the negative behaviour. It is difficult though, if the tantrum is in a public place, the behaviour of the carer can be affected by others around them. So the child may learn that having a tantrum in a public place, eg. a supermarket will result in them receiving attention, so reinforcing the unwanted behaviour.

The response can also backfire in that the child may become defiant and refuse to cooperate. In this, the concept of using operant conditioning may not suppress the negative behaviour which then continues.

Social Cognitive Learning – Albert Bandura

Although known as social learning theory (or Observational Learning), Bandura’s theory does describe intellectual development but sees this as part of the social interactions that children have.

The child develops their intellect and behaviour as a result of observing and developing a response to a social interaction, eg they may learn through imitating others and role modelling both the behaviour and the response. Individual influences that the child sees will be seen differently at different stages of development. Bandura’s theory recognises that people’s views about the behaviour being observed are important in controlling behaviour, not the stimulus itself. As well as demonstrating straight imitation, he also showed that children learn about the consequences of their actions through seeing other people experience consequences of their actions. This is known as vicarious reinforcement.

Intellectual - Social Development – Lev Vygotsky

Vygotsky saw human development as being a result of the dynamic interaction between the child’s physical development and their surrounding social world. He saw social interaction as being central to the child’s intellectual development and to learning. The main features he describes are:

Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) - Each child has a ZPD, which is only achievable with the help from another more skilled or knowledgeable person. This could be an adult or a child who is more competent at the task. This will only help the child to learn if the task is far enough ahead of the child’s learning to be a challenge but not too far as to be impossible. Vygotsky stressed the need for action, reflection and co-operation in learning through the ZPD. For example, learning to knit or to count and read. Once the techniques are mastered, the child is able to easily undertake the skill.

Vygotsky stresses the importance of memory and language in learning to think and that these abilities are built on cultural influences and the social interactions, initially with the main carer, but then in all social interactions. Each time the child experiences the same or a similar situation, they will deal with it at a higher level, reconstructing their ability to cope or to improve their management of the situation.

Importance of play - Children benefit from play as they can do things beyond what they can do in real life, e.g. pretend to fly a plane. Play is another route through which children can reach their ZPD.

Critique - Vygotsky’s theory has been viewed as neglecting the role of genes in guiding development especially with regard to neurological maturation in mental processes.

Developing thinking – Jerome Bruner

Bruner’s ideas about how the child develops the ability to think combines elements of Vygotsky and Piaget. He believed that learning was an active process and that the child learns by interacting with their environment. The child then constructs an understanding or internal representation of this environment, responding through producing a behavioural response.

Bruner describes three stages of thinking: enactive thinking, iconic thinking and symbolic thinking suggesting that children go through each of these stages as they learn. Bruner identified this as scaffolding, although Vygotsky would see this as the Zone of Proximal Development.

Enactive thinking -children need to have direct first hand experiences of the stimuli within their environment. They need to interact with them, but don’t need any internal representation of these stimuli.

Iconic thinking -they need to be reminded of prior experiences. They are calling on their internal representations of the stimuli around them in order to learn more about them.

Symbolic thinking –Here stimuli are coded and categorised in some abstract way, for example in words, numbers music, maths, drawing, dance and play.

Intellectual - Social Development – Jean Piaget

Piaget was interested in how the mind works and organises information. His overriding theme was that the child interacts with the environment and processes their everyday experiences to build up an understanding of the world. Intellectual development is therefore the evidence of the child taking in new information, assimilating this, then making sense of the information, accommodating it, before finally adapting to the environment they perceive themselves to be in. This is known as social constructivism.

As the baby develops, they start to build ideas of their world losing the innate reflexes, eg. sucking and grasping; and starting to reach for objects, seeing what other people do in response to themselves.

Once the baby begins to recognise that he or she is distinct from the environment, they start to realise a sense of self. This sense is initially dominant and egocentric. Piaget divided childhood learning into several phases:

Sensori-motor phase - (0-2 years) Here the child directly links sensory information to motor actions. “If you bang something it makes a noise” During this phase the child develops a sense of self and also of objective permanence - at first, the child doesn’t realise that an object continues to exist when it is hidden, but then gradually develops this understanding and will start to look for the missing object.

Pre-operational - (2-7 years). Language becomes important as the child learns to assign words and categories to objects in order to understand the world. The child’s view remains egocentric.
Concrete operational - (7-11 years). The child learns to think logically about events and situations and develops numeric skills. They learn to classify objects according to more abstract connections.
Formal operational - (From 11 years). The child learns to use analytical processes to test their assumptions about the world. They can speculate about abstract, distant and future events.
Learning - Piaget emphasises the need for the child to be active in order to construct their own knowledge of different concepts, eg, in providing play areas in primary schools. This ‘active, childcentred’ learning is what some educationalists believe should drive the development of primary and secondary school education.

Operant conditioning – B.F. Skinner

Skinner identifies that we develop language after birth through a process of reinforcement.

When babies make sounds that match with their heritage language they get a very positive response. This encourages the child to make this sound again. Sounds that are not reinforced will be lost (operant conditioning). So all babies make the sound ch as in loch or ll as in Llanelli or r (Scottish/welsh/Japanese) but these are not responded to if the parent does not use that sound so it will be rapidly lost from the babble of small babies.

Bandura adds to this by suggesting that what is important is role-modelling by the parents and observation resulting in a sense of achievement by the child.

Both theories are dependent on the child learning from their environment. As such, there is a mechanism by which the child in a different culture will learn the native language they hear at home.

Research to test these ideas though shows that just listening to the mother’s voice is not sufficient to then use the correct grammar and syntax (smith et al).

Intellectual theory – Lev Vygotsky

In relation to language development, Vygotsky identifies that the monologue that many children develop talking to themselves alongside others represents a stage in the child developing thought processes and that this becomes the concept of ‘inner speech’ as the thought processes start to be internalised.

Nativist theory – Noam Chomsky

Chomsky suggests that our ability to talk is genetically determined and we all have the appropriate physical and intellectual capabilities for acquiring language. The child therefore uses an innate ability to process regular changes in language, eg adding an ‘s’ to make a plural, before then learning the specific irregularities; e.g. house – becomes houses and mouse becomes mice.

He also suggests that not every child will be exposed to perfect grammar as a toddler so the fact that a child starting school is likely to develop a good grasp of language is dependent on an innate ability.

Psychosocial development – Erik Erikson

Erikson developed a theory of psychosocial development that has 8 different stages:

• Trust vs mistrust (ages 0-2 months). Leading to Hope
• Autonomy vs shame (18- 36 months) Leading to will
• Initiative vs guilt (3-5 years) Leading to Purpose
• Industry vs inferiority (5-12 years) leading to Competency
• Identity vs role confusion (13-18 years) leading to fidelity
• Intimacy vs isolation (18-40 years) leading to Love
• Generativity vs stagnation (40-65years) leading to Care
• Ego integrity vs despair (65+ years) leading to Wisdom.

He discusses the need for the developing child to achieve each stage before they can progress to the next one. The ability to succeed at a stage is dependent on the social interactions the child has had to help them learn to develop the goal. If the aim is not achieved, the problem is carried forward to the next stage and will affect the child’s ability to develop further, e.g. Erikson believes that a child who doesn’t develop trust in their main carer as a baby can have problems in developing intimate relationships as an adult. Erikson identifies development as being influenced by the cultural and societal demands placed on the person, e.g. a child needs to be toilet trained by the time they enter school. There can then be a determination for the child to develop bladder control by 3/4 years old. If the child hasn’t developed this, then the consequence is potentially being singled out, developing a feeling of guilt and shame in not achieving the required goal socially.

Critique - Erikson undertook a number of observations to identify these stages, but this was not part of a large-scale research process and as a result, a number of theorists, e.g. Marcia, since have developed ways to test the assumptions made by Erikson.

Attachment theory – John Bowlby

Bowlby’s attachment theory describes the “lasting psychological connectedness between human beings. “ (Bowlby 1969). In young children this attachment forms with the principle care-givers, usually the parents. Attachment theory describes how the quality of the attachment system early on could have consequences for the developing child into adulthood.

The attachment system helps the infant develop a goal-based partnership with their carer; it helps the infant choose what behaviours are going to get their attachment needs met. Later, it guides the child’s thinking about close relationships in general. The child begins to have an internal working model of themselves in relation to others. It is not just about what specific behaviours to show to stay close to the mother. Attachment theory described stranger anxiety- the response to a stranger and separation anxiety - in response to separation from the care giver and comfort on reacquaintance. It also discusses the degree to which a child may look to a carer on how to respond in a given situation, known as social referencing.

Moral Reasoning – Lawrence Kohlberg

Kohlberg’s stages of moral development are an adaption of the work of Piaget which suggests that moral reasoning is the basis for ethical behaviour and social interaction. He identified 6 levels of moral reasoning divided into three stages – pre-conventional, conventional and post-conventional.

In the preconventional stage, typically seen in young children, the individual is concerned with avoiding punishment and also with self-interest – what benefit can be derived from any situation.

During the conventional stage, the individual is concerned with social conformity either imposed by social norms or by legal and moral frameworks. This is typical of adolescents.

In the post-conventional stage the individual is developing their own moral frameworks and ethical positions. This is typical of older adolescents and adults. They realise that individuals are separate from society per se and they may question given rules and norms. They appreciate that rules are not absolute to be obeyed without question.

Gender Identity Theory – Lawrence Kohlberg

Kohlberg discussed gender identity in terms of cognitive learning and proposed a series of stages:

Stage 1 - Gender labelling occurs between 18months - 3years; the child recognizes they are male or female and uses labels such as boy, girl, although there is limited understanding that a boy will become a man and girl will become a woman. At this age gender flexible play and cross gender role play is common. Young children have limited inhibitions around nudity and bodily functions and enjoy exploring their own body.

Stage 2 - Gender stability. At 3 - 5 years; children will recognise that people remain either male or female, although they rely on cues such as hair length, colour of clothes , and even jobs to determine this. They are curious about others bodies and will occasionally masturbate as a self-soothing activity. Often exaggerated gender characteristics are shown in play as a response to external influence s e.g. via the media which portray superheroes and princesses.

Stage 3 - Gender Constancy, 6-7 years; the child can understand that gender is permanent despite physical outward changes.. Gender norms are strongly reinforced among peer groups and they are aware of some of the taboos that exist. There is a great deal of ‘potty’ humour with jokes about poo, wee, bottoms and farts being very popular. They ask curious questions about reproduction and engage in romantic role rehearsal with same and different sex peers.