se their private speech as a self-guiding and self-directional function. A child at the age of two is likely to use this language to account for its actions, then at the age of four, will more likely to use private speech while they work, and then as the child get older, they may use it to assist with the planning of what they are about to undertake.Vygotsky believed that a child would take the instructional language of more mature individuals to assist them in achieving a task. The child would take this language and them incorporate it into their own private speech, which would assist with the childs cognitive development.While Vygotskys findings were revolutionary for their time, Behaviorists were not particularly concerned with the implications they had on language for cognitive development (Allyn & Bacon). As Vygotskys work was not even translated into English until 1962, it wasnt until late in the 20th century when a resolution to the differences between Vygotskys and Piagets theories could be sought.This lead to a test of Vygotskys findings in 1968 by Kohlberg, Yaeger and Hjertholm. Their study involved observing many middle class students aged between four and seven, while they were playing at school. Piagets theory would have suggested that Kohlberg, Yaeger and Hjertholm would have found that the children, who exhibited the least private speech, would be the most mature socially. The Kohlberg study actually found the direct opposite, that the more social students were the ones exhibiting the most private speech. They also found that the private speech of the cognitively advanced students peeked earlier than the private speech of students not as advanced cognitively. This is diagrammed in Figure 5.Fig. 5Demonstrates that cognitively advanced children develop their private speech earlier than less cognitively advanced children.Private speech appears systematically in young children (Winsler, Carlton and Barry, 2000). Kohl...
