Question

How does egocentric evolve and what is different between Piaget and Vygotsky idea of egocentric of speech?

Answer 1

It’ll be a good idea to understand briefly about egocentrism & egocentric speech, before looking at how the egocentric evolves and the differences between the ideologies of the two psychologists.

Egocentrism is an inability of a child in the preoperational stage of development to see any point of view other than their own. For example, little Kian gets a phone call from his father, who asks little Kian if Mommy is home. Instead of saying, "yes", Kian nods his head. His father, hearing no response, asks again, to which Kian again nods his head again. What Kian fails to understand is that her father is unable to see his nodding. Kian can only take his own perspective - "I am nodding my head yes, why do you keep asking me this question?"

Egocentric speech on the other hand, is a kind of speech that is carried out with oneself, not necessarily addressing anyone. This kind of speech is seen to occur in very young children, typically 3-5-year olds, and it is said that it is used as a means of learning speech, since children do not know how to think first and then speak. For example, you will find that a child has the tendency of talking to himself/herself and literally giving a commentary of what he/she is doing. While feeding a doll, or playing with a car- like 'Now I'm going to bathe the Barbie doll' or 'Now the car will crash against the wall'.

So, now after reviewing the concepts, let’s see how do they evolve and what are the differences between Piaget & Vygotsky’s idea of egocentric of speech?

As the child grows, the instances of this behaviour & speech become lesser and lesser, and in a year or two, it completely vanishes. This happens because the child learns how to internalize his thoughts, think about what he wants to say, and then speak.

The following are two of the most famous theories that highlight this concept in more detail, despite the differences that we will focus on primarily.

Jean Piaget's Theory : Jean Piaget observed children and articulated the concept of egocentric speech. This form of speech is a part of Piaget's stages of development. He said that when a child is born and begins to learn how to speak, he exhibits this form of speech, such that he talks to himself without addressing anyone in particular. He also observed that whenever the child speaks to himself, he almost always uses loud speech.

Piaget explains that this loud and 'to oneself' speech happened because the child had not learned to be social yet. Being social meant that he needed to take other's viewpoints into consideration, or understand what the others were saying. Thus, he did not know how to effectively communicate with others and resorted to egocentric speech because it was all 'internal' for him--what 'he' thought. As the child grew, he would learn to be a part of the social arena and thus develop proper means of communication. This would mean that egocentric speech would fade away and it would be replaced by social speech.

Vygotsky's Theory: Vygotsky on the other hand observed the behavioural patterns of children and then deduced certain theories on the concept of egocentric speech. His viewpoint was different from Piaget's.

As per him, children used this form of speech because they had not yet developed the concept of internalizing their thoughts. The child, he said, had not yet learned the concept of being able to think his thoughts through, deduce them and then speak. He was in the process of learning and therefore the constant instructions that were passed on to him were verbalized loudly without processing them. He also believed that the child was a social creature to begin with and did not become social with time. He said that all the actions that a child takes part in-may it be babbling, or using words that the child starts to utter when learning to speak and communicate for the first time, were proof enough of the same. The child therefore has always been a social creature.

In this manner, he opposed the theory of Piaget who said that the child learns to be social with time and then learns to communicate with others. Vygotsky also said that egocentric speech is not replaced by social speech, but gradually develops into it.

In the years that followed, a combination of both these theories was made and the term egocentric speech was replaced by private speech. This was considered to be a more acceptable term.

Additionally, unlike Piaget, Vygotsky believed that development can’t be detached from social context while children can create knowledge and lead their development. He also claimed that language plays an important role in cognitive development. Piaget only viewed language as a plain milestone in development.

Just to summarise:

• Piaget insisted that learning happens after development while Vygotsky pointed out that learning takes place before development can occur.
• Piaget did not believe in the significance of inputs that can be acquired from the environment but Vygotsky was confident that kids do acknowledge the inputs from their environment.
• Piaget’s cognitive development theory has four evident phases. Vygotsky assumed that there are no set of stages at all but only 3 components.
• Vygotsky believed that development can’t be detached from social context unlike Piaget.
• Vygotsky claimed that language plays an important role in cognitive development. Piaget only viewed language as a plain milestone in development.

Hope the aforementioned is free of any ambiguity and is useful to you.

Thanks