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Comparing Theories Of Children Learn And Develop And How Their Theories Work Essay

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The purpose of this essay is to compare and contrast two theorists on how children learn and develop and how their theories work in the early years setting. Piaget and Skinner are both very well known for their theories, they contrast each other as one shows the behaviourist view while the other shows the cognitive view. Piaget is a nativist, he believes that children learn best through active learning, doing for themselves. Whereas Skinner is an empiricist he believes that children’s knowledge is learnt from their sense experience and environment. Jean Piaget was born on 9th August 1896 in Switzerland. He studied natural sciences at the University of Neuchatel where he received a Ph.D. He then went onto the University of Zurich where he became interested in psychoanalysis. It was from there he went onto the Sorbonne University in Paris in 1919 to study clinical psychology. It was while Piaget was in Paris that he began working with Alfred Binet marking intelligence tests. It was whilst working on the intelligence tests that he became aware of the process of cognitive development and how it differed considerably from young children to older children to adults. It was from this that he then began his study on the process of thinking in the development of children. (The famous people, 2016) He constructed his theory from observing his children, it was from these observations that he established his four stages of development and schemas; schemas are a set of ideas that

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