Language is a particularly interesting topic to analyse because of its uniqueness to human beings and whether our cognitive capabilities are because of our neurology, or simply supported by our language itself. Constructivism argues that the mind self-assembles by building a mental image of the world for oneself, understanding, and building concepts within your frame of biological capacity.

Piaget was the first to use this term and he argued that regardless of social and cultural context, the brain has certain stages of development. This development occurs through your construction of mental images of the world, creating understanding, which he argues follows a certain order of succession, which remains constant regardless of social standing. Some may have delayed or quick development, however, the order of development continues the same.

His ideas do not seem far-fetched because neurobiological studies have shown that, as a child develops, their brain changes. Through increasing stimulation and repetition, neural pathways between individual and populations of neurons are organised, allowing the brain to become more connected and the individual to perform increasingly complex thinking and actions.

This specific analysis has interesting connotations to the understanding of learning and whether it is caused by nature or caused by the environment. If one takes Piaget’s conclusions in at face value, it would be possible to conclude that learning in certain ages can only occur within a certain limit, and with the development of the brain, specific areas of the brain responsible for learning increase their ‘storage’ of knowledge. Chomsky, for example, argued that the formation of sentences is such a complex process that can be learned so quickly that it simply can’t be a result of environmental factors. Therefore, there must be some kind of ‘language organ’ which has a ‘Universal Grammar’ wired into our biology.

Through this view, it seems that cognitive development is a result of nature. However, Chomsky’s view about a ‘Universal Grammar’ has been criticised because in different cultures, people will have different ways of thinking. If brain development is pushed through brain stimulation, different ways of stimulating the brain should result in different developments of language in different cultures.

His view can also be criticised through the idea of neuroplasticity. Repetition is able to change neural pathways in the brain, if such changes exist, a rigid, localised organ responsible for language seems unlikely, and Piaget’s notion that the brain follows a specific order of development also doesn’t seem completely accurate. Development occurs; however, stages of development would depend on the types of stimulation the brain receives.

These stimulations can be, for example, environmental stimulation through socialization. This is something that Piaget agreed with. He argued that a complex relationship between development of the brain and social development exists through processes he labelled ‘Assimilation’ and ‘Accommodation.’

Looking at language again, Vygotsky has a language-based, social-based view as an alternative to brain developmentalism as an explanation for language. Children have a type of thinking which he calls ‘complex.’ An example of this would be, when asking a child to classify things in a room, they will name things, and see the others which are beside one another. However, parents are able to see different words conceptually, they are able to understand what these things are, what they do and what differs a word from another – this is ‘Conceptual Thinking.’ When the parent uses these words conceptually, they work as scaffolds for the child into higher forms of thinking. A set of social scaffolds moves the child gradually in the direction of conceptual thinking through social influence rather than brain development.

Cognition can’t be something that is only biological, and the mind can’t be viewed only individually. As Lave & Wenger argues, when you join a community, for example, you don’t participate fully in their activities, you only participate through ‘Legitimate Peripheral Participation,’ where you learn the culture, activities and behaviour of the group, knowledge is transmitted within the group. This transmission of knowledge can be seen in culture for example. Donald argues that “our brains have coevolved with culture and are adapted for living in culture” – that is, for assimilating the algorithms and knowledge networks of culture. Language, music, maths, and other capacities emerged as by-products of the brain’s evolving symbiosis with mindsharing cultures. Language emerges only at the group level and is a cultural product. This distribution of knowledge through culture can be defined as ‘Distributed Cognitions.’

With all of this said, it’s necessary to state that this doesn’t mean that one idea of cognition is correct or incorrect, neither argument truly cancels the other. For example, neurology is able to explain the possibility of either, the brain does deal with language, and it is possible that through social interactions neuronal pathways are organised, changed, and lead to Piaget’s phases of cognitive development, which can change due to the brain’s plasticity nature, after all, the idea of phases of brain development isn’t something new, Freud believed in the Psychosexual Stages, for example. However, neurology can’t confirm that any of these arguments is the correct one. At the moment, where I stand is similar to Solomon’s: “while cognitions can be distributed, they need a few “sources” for this distribution such that they can operate conjointly.” As it is likely that cognition is affected by nature, or nurture, it is also likely that it is affected by both.

https://newlearningonline.com/new-learning/chapter-6/supporting-material/piaget-on-child-development

https://newlearningonline.com/new-learning/chapter-6/supporting-material/davidson-on-brain-basics

https://newlearningonline.com/new-learning/chapter-6/supporting-material/donald-on-the-evolution-of-human-consciousness

https://newlearningonline.com/new-learning/chapter-6/supporting-material/salomon-on-distributed-cognition

https://newlearningonline.com/new-learning/chapter-6/supporting-material/lave-and-wenger-on-situated-learning