Fostering Child Development: Zone of Proximal Development and Cognitive Skills

As a child grows up, they will go through several different stages of development that will shape them as their own individual person and prepare them for further developmental processes. Cognitive development, or the development of a child’s perception, thinking, learning, and memory is the basis for how a child will continue learning both in school and from the environment around them. In order to build a child’s cognition, adults involved in the child’s learning experiences (relatively parents and their teachers) must foster the child’s cognitive processes, or the change in their thinking, intelligence, and language skills. A specific area of cognitive development which requires instruction and assistance from adults is zone of proximal development. Zone of proximal development, or the zone of proximal development is the term for tasks that are too difficult for children to master alone but can be mastered with assistance from adults or more- skilled children.

In zone of proximal development, there is the lower limit, the actual zone of proximal development (or ZPD) and the upper limit. The lower limit is the level of problem solving reached on tasks by a child working independently, the zone of proximal development is being the range of tasks that are too difficult for the child to master alone, but can be learned with guidance and assistance, and the upper limit is the level of additional responsibility the child can accept with assistance of an able instructor. The challenges of zone of proximal development range in severity child to child, but are relatelively the same for everyone. Assessing where a child’s skills currently are and how much challenge they can handle with assistance may be difficult. Because language and thought are the first two aspects of zone of proximal development, it may be hard to gage where a child’s current understanding of dialogue lies. According to psychologist Vygotsky, who is responsible for the idea of zone of proximal development, language and thought first develop independently and then merge during further development.

The zone of proximal development is something that children are born having, being that from the moment they are born, they will begin to collect information from their environment and those who they are surrounded by. Of course, for any skill, children will be in their lower limit. In the development of language and thinking, it is important for parents, or any beings around the child to speak to them. Even when a child is still too young to respond back to someone speaking to them, it helps the child to develop an understanding for language: who the people around them are (mom, dad, brother/sister, etc), what their surroundings are (this is home, this is daycare, this is the playground, etc), and what is around them (toys, books, bottle, etc). Scaffolding, or the term used to describe the practice of changing the level of support provided over the course of a teaching session, with the more- skilled person adjusting guidance to fit the child’s current performance level, is an idea closely linked to zone of proximal development which is vital in teaching a child any skill. In terms of language, dialogue is an important tool to use. According to Vygotsky, children have rich but unsystematic, disorganized, and spontaneous concepts which are address in dialogue, but are further met with the systematic, logical, and rational concepts of a skilled helper.

Children use language not only to communicate with others, but also to solve tasks, plan, guide, and monitor their behavior. This type of language is called private speech, and can be better understood as the language children use in self- regulation. Developing a child’s language allows not only stronger social communication, but allows the child to have internalized egocentric speech, or inner speech, meaning they can begin to focus on their own thoughts. Teaching language is not simply teaching a child how to talk, but also how to think, behave, and interact with what is around them.

To teach language and thought, it is best to first to assess the child’s zone of proximal development by giving the child different tasks of ranging difficulties to determine the best level of instruction to give moving further. It is important to teach towards the child’s upper limit, this way the child can reach the goal with help and achieve a higher skill set and knowledge. The more skilled person should be observant when the child is completing the task, taking note of which parts of the task are difficult for them and ask the child if they need help. It is also important that the more skilled person provide encouragement, as it can be easy for children to give up when something seems to be “too hard.” To have a mix of adults and older children help is beneficial for all children involved. It teaches children on both ends new skills, and for the child with less skill, it can be more relatable and inspirational to receive help from someone who is closer in age to them than just another adult.

As a parent, the best way to help your child develop within their zone of proximal development is to always be interactive with them from the time they are an infant and throughout their childhood and even adolescence. Conversing with your child is the easiest way to help them, but other ideas could be implementing daily activities which reinforce skills taught in school, or if they are not in school yet, to expose them to entry level skills so they may be more well prepared when they do enter school. With the use of technology, parents can allow their children time with a tablet or in front of a television and stream fun, educational videos. Websites like YouTube are filled with educational content that is child friendly and includes a wide variety of subjects, characters, and ways the child can interact along with the video. For further benefit, the parent should show the child how to interact with the video, so they can learn how to do so on their own.

Out of personal experience, when I was a child my mother bought cassette tapes with songs that taught me how to count and to learn our home phone number and address. She often would also let me watch shows like Barney, which teach children colors, shapes, and more. My mother always was interactive with me and made sure I knew how to participate along with the tapes and television shows. As I got older, my mother bought “Hooked on Phonics,” a program which came with different videos, games and flash cards to teach children phonics. Everyday she would bring out the box and spend an hour or so with me doing the different activities of the program. To this day, English and writing are my two strongest aspects in my education, and I am confident it is because my mother helped me develop in my zone of proximal development.

Of course, schools should center all education around developing a child’s zone of proximal development. Because children are hands- on and active learners, it is important that teachers be required to implement activities into the curriculum which require student participation, beyond just asking and answering questions. Math can be taught using blocks, history taught by acting out events (ex: learning about the Constitution or Declaration of Independence, children dress up as different founding fathers and act out what happened), and about the environment by taking a “field trip” around the school, taking note of recycling bins and anything else they notice around them. Activities should challenge a child’s current skills and should be well explained and guided by the teacher or instructor.

One way school systems can help children develop within their zone of proximal development is by having older students in the same school spend time with the younger students. Schools can implement that a certain amount of recess be dedicated to play time between the younger and older students, having the older students teach simple skills from sports such as kickball or basketball (ex: kicking the ball and running to a base, dribbling and passing the ball) in order to give the children basic concepts of playground sports while also teaching them how to think in a task oriented manner. The older children will give both verbal instructions while also showing by example what to do. This helps a child reach their upper limit of their proximal development. At first, the child may not be able to remember the tasks to be completed in order to achieve the goal of kicking a ball and running to a base, but with an older peer guiding them reminding them what to do step by step, they may be able to think in broader terms. Instead of focusing on just kicking the ball, they will focus on kicking the ball, running to a base, and scoring a point. Success of these skills can be assessed by how often a child can score a base, but should mainly be assessed by the child’s ability to carry out each task without constant instruction from an older peer. This will challenge the child to consider more than one simple task at a time, and while this will help them in sports, this is a skill easily applied in the classroom, playroom, and in their day to day activities.

An example of how both teachers and fellow students can work together is by having a day of the week where a class of younger students joins a class of older students and the older students read a book to the younger students. Students are paired one older student to one or two younger students, and the books read are books which are beyond the younger child’s zone of proximal development, but within the older student’s zone of proximal development. This exposes the younger students to a higher range of vocabulary, while encouraging involvement between students regardless of age. This may also encourage each student to spend more of their free time reading, and in the case of the younger student, may encourage them to further challenge themselves by asking their parents to buy/read them books that are beyond their current zone of proximal development. Further, this gives the parent the opportunity to do a similar activity in their home.

Developing a child’s zone of proximal development is essential. Activities promoting the development of a child’s zone of proximal development must be done from the time a child is an infant and throughout their childhood. If parents, teachers, and peers of a child all work together in developing a child’s zone of proximal development, by the time the child reaches late adolescence, they will have a strong skill set preparing them to be independent. Although developing a child’s zone of proximal development has its challenges, it must not be overlooked.