Author: Dr. Jill Duncan University of Newcastle/Royal Institute for Deaf and Blind Children Parramatta, Australia Date submitted to deafed.net – September.

Author: Dr. Jill DuncanUniversity of Newcastle/Royal Institute for

Deaf and Blind Children

Parramatta, Australia

Date submitted to deafed.net – September 6, 2006To contact the author for permission to use this PowerPoint, please e-mail: [email protected] To use this PowerPoint presentation in its entirety, please give credit to the author.

VYGOTSKY AND AUDITORY-VERBAL THERAPY

Jill Duncan, PhD, Cert [email protected]

Renwick Centre for Professional Education and Research

Royal Institute for Deaf and Blind Children and the University of Newcastle

www.auditory-verbal.org.au

INTRODUCTION

Ideally in daily practice auditory-verbal therapists work within a theory of human learning and development

Theory serves as a guide for making moment-to-moment decisions in clinical practice ( Schneider & Watkins, 1996)

INTRODUCTION

The goal here is to put forward a particular social interactionist theory – Vygotsky’s

The end result will facilitate an improved ability to help the child move toward independent performance

BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

Lev Vygotsky lived in Russia more than 100 years ago during a turbulent, revolutionary time

Although trained in law and the arts, he worked as a psychologist for 10 years (1924-1934), and during that time he accomplished enormous achievements

He wrote 200 pieces of literature, founded a scientific school of thought and laid the foundation for several new directions in the field of psychology (Vygodskya, 1999)


Soon after Vygotsky’s untimely death, the Stalinist regime had his work banned

For 20 years his widow and two daughters kept Vygotsky’s manuscripts hidden under their beds in their tiny apartment in Moscow

The first collection of Vygotsky’s works were published in 1956 by his daughter (Vygodskya, 1999)


• Vygotsky’s early professional career focused on special education in Moscow

• He has wrote on deaf education and one of his daughters went on to become a teacher of the deaf (Vygodskya, 1999)

THEORETICAL FOUNDATION

• Constructivism in education is based on notions from cognitive and social psychology

• The former is grounded in the work of Piaget (1954, 1955, 1970) and accentuates cognitive developmental and individual construction of knowledge (Kaufman, 2004)


The latter (social constructivism) emphasizes social construction of knowledge and is generally attributed to the work of Vygotsky (1962, 1978) (cited in Kaufman, 2004)


• Constructivist pedagogy is the most influential theory in the field of education today (Baily & Pransky, 2005)

• Constructivism is a popular educational theory that is actually composed of two distinct branches of thought –

–Social construction-Vygotsky–Cognitive construction-Piaget (Baily & Pransky, 2005)


Vygotsky believed that children’s thinking and meaning-making is socially constructed and emerges out of their social interactions and their environment

Children’s learning is facilitated by parents, peers, teachers, and others in their lives (Kaufman, 2004)


Vygotsky’s main theories focused on context, culture, and language

Vygotsky’s most well known theory is called “Cultural-Historical Activity Theory” (cultural transmission of knowledge) (Gindis, 1999)


Cultural transmission of knowledge is a psychological theory in which the human being is the subject of social-cultural, rather than biological-natural processes

Vygotsky is considered the “founder of cultural psychology” (Gindis, 1999)


In special education, Vygotsky often wrote of “compensatory strategies” whereby the objective of intervention was enhancing the “mightiness of the mind”

This included -• abstract reasoning• logical memory • problem solving • goal directed behaviours (Gindis, 1999)


Fundamental to understanding Vygotsky’s theories and/or constructs is the understanding that Vygotsky viewed language as the force that drives cognitive development because language mediates the child’s participation in his intellectual and social environment (Owens, 1996)

KEY THEORETICAL CONSTRUCTS

• Two key theoretical constructs associated with Vygotskyian thinking are-

– Zone of Proximal Development– Scaffolding (Although not originally

used by Vygotsky, it refers to Vygotsky’s notion of the social-cultural interaction between a more skilled learner and a less skilled learner) (Berk & Winsler,1995)

ZONE OF PROXIMAL DEVELOPMENT

Vygotsky defines the Zone of Proximal Development as “the area of immature, but maturing (psychological) process” and first used the term in the context of assessing cognitive development (Vygotsky, 1962)


• The Zone of Proximal Development embodies the learners readiness to learn

• It is the distance between the learner’s actual developmental level and the level of their potential development (Kaufman, 2004)


• A child does not "have" a Zone of Proximal Development – it is not a feature of the child

• Rather a zone is created whenever children interact with more-capable others in particular activities (Tharp & Gallimore, 1988)


• For a Zone of Proximal Development to be created, there must be a joint activity that creates a context for student and expert interaction

• The expert may then use multiple instructional strategies (Tharp & Gallimore, 1988)


The learner’s potential for learning guides the design of problem-solving tasks and determines the level and range of scaffolding the learners require for accommodating the learning task (Kaufman, 2004)


In using the Zone of Proximal Development, adults structure activities so that the child functions between the baseline and ceiling of capacity

The Zone of Proximal Development is the difference between a child’s actual developmental level and current potential development

SCAFFOLDING• Scaffolding (Wood, Bruner & Ross,

1976) is a metaphor that translates into a model of learning through gradual increments as a result of an interactive process

• In essence, it implies a process of collaboration between teacher and student learners – ideally between a single learner in a one-on-one tutoring relationship (Lefrancois, 2001)

SCAFFOLDING

In general, scaffolding is providing support through many mechanisms including -• directions• guidance • demonstrations • explanations • provision of models• explanations of objective

SCAFFOLDING

• breaking down information into comprehensible components

• modelling • coaching • providing feedback • appropriating responsibility for learning to

learners (Kaufman, 2004)

External Scaffolding supports learners’ acquisition of knowledge by the teacher-

SCAFFOLDING

Internal scaffolding engages the learner in reflection and self-monitoring to enhance acquisition of concepts (Kaufman, 2004)

The notion of internal scaffolding is not dissimilar to metacognition and meta- linguistics

SCAFFOLDING

• Most good teachers already use scaffolding techniques, so what's new?

–Vygotsky's concept of Zone of Proximal Development - what learners are capable of with the help of adults or peers

• Therefore teachers and other adults arrange for children to engage in activities that lie within this zone

SCAFFOLDING

• To the extent that the environment requires the child to perform at a level slightly in advance of their current developmental level, progress will be enhanced

SCAFFOLDING

• By using the Zone of Proximal Development the child’s performance under the adult guidance is at a higher level than they are capable of independently

• The goal is for the adult to use minimal direction with maximal responsibility left to the child (Kaufman, 2004)

• Eventually the assistance of the adult is dropped because the skill is internalised by the child (Schneider & Watkins, 1996)

SCAFFOLDING

Educational Implications • By keeping tasks in a child’s Zone of

Proximal Development or slightly above their level of independent functioning, adults can “rouse to life” the cognitive processes that are just emerging in a rudimentary form (Tharp & Allimore, 1988)

SCAFFOLDING

Educational Implications • At the prelinguistic level, the child's

attention is what must primarily be negotiated (Rommetveit, 1979); at a later age negotiations can involve the nature of the activity and the ways to operate within it

SCAFFOLDING

Educational Implications• Teachers too are learners in this context.

They observe and identify the students' Zone of Proximal Development; design appropriate, authentic, and meaningful learning modules; and provide instructional support and scaffolding to propel students to construction of higher levels of understanding (Kaufman, 2004)

SCAFFOLDING

Educational Implications• In striving to promote autonomy,

creativity and engagement, teachers' choice of scripts can powerfully motivate or block such endeavours (Stigler & Hiebert, 1999)

SCAFFOLDING

Educational Implications • Demands that are beyond children's

capacities (in other words that are beyond their Zone of Proximal Development) are ineffective in promoting growth

• Similarly demands that are too simple are wasteful (Demetrion, 1999)

SCAFFOLDING

Educational Implications • A discerning teacher is capable of

determining the critical edge of a student's learning capacity for self-directed learning at any given time and can decide when assistance is needed to facilitate further learning (Demetrion, 1999)

SCAFFOLDING

Adult-child Collaboration• The adult's contribution cannot be

examined in isolation; it must be seen in relation to the child's contribution

• The nature of the child's ongoing behaviour demands moment-by-moment decisions on the part of the adult as the optimal kind of input to be provided at any particular point (Demetrion, 1999)

SCAFFOLDINGAdult-child Collaboration• The notion of sensitivity implies that

the adult's guidance supports what the child can already do

• Being highly sensitive to the children's verbal cues and signals in performing, means that they are able to respond promptly and appropriately to child-initiated activities and behaviours

SCAFFOLDINGAdult-child Collaboration• The more skilled the child is in

performing the task, independently, the less frequently the adults provide guidance

• A good therapist needs to follow a moving Zone of Proximal Development

SCAFFOLDING

Adult-child Collaboration• Scaffolding is a useful umbrella term

to describe a wide range of adult actions

• There is need for continuous revision of action in response to the child's ongoing activity (Schaffer, 1996)

SCAFFOLDING

Adult-child Collaboration• The term scaffolding is a metaphor but it

does not explain the problem of internalisation i.e. how a child become self-regulating after a period of other-regulation

• It does not help one to understand the processes responsible for mental reorganisation which underlies that independence (Schaffer, 1996)

EVIDENCE BASED AUDITORY-VERABL INTERVENTION

Skilled auditory-verbal therapists observe and identify a student’s Zone of Proximal Development, design appropriate authentic and meaningful learning tasks, and provide instructional support and scaffolding to facilitate the construction of higher levels of understanding

EVIDENCE BASED AUDITORY-VERBAL INTERVENTION

Evidence based auditory-verbal intervention is the use of best evidence in making decisions about individual children and students in planing therapy, in conducting therapy and in deciding placement options


• Vygotsky (1962) believed that decisions regarding intervention and/or interactions should be both qualitative and quantitative in nature

• Effective auditory-verbal therapists use a combination of informal observation(s) as well as standardised assessments


Evidenced based auditory-verbal intervention demands ongoing functional and informal diagnostic therapy and observation as well as comprehensive standardised assessment of linguistic, auditory, speech and cognitive skills development

FRAMEWORK FORAPPLYING VYGOTSKY

STEP ONE• Obtain comprehensive child/student/family

information

STEP TWO• Observe child in a variety of communicative

contexts

STEP THREE• Conduct initial therapy to establish baseline

of contextualised functional communication


STEP FOUR• Complete qualitative data analysis

STEP FIVE• Complete standardised assessments

STEP SIX• Establish Zone of Proximal Development

(basal and ceiling) and use this information to set goals


STEP SEVEN• Plan therapy based on set goals using the

information obtained through establishing the Zone of Proximal Development

STEP EIGHT• Conduct therapy and use a range of

scaffolding techniques to work within the Zone of Proximal Development


STEP NINE• Modify therapy based on ongoing diagnostic

observations of the child’s behaviour

STEP TEN• Repeat the cycle as often as necessary and

at every step be sure to provide parent education to assist the parents in recognising how to best scaffold the child’s learning

THE CHALLENGE

Understanding Zygotsky’s Vision–Determining and working within the “Zone of Proximal Development”–The “power” of explicit, meaningful scaffolded instruction–Scaffolded instruction can optimise learning

Understanding Zygotsky’s Vision“One must keep in mind that any child with a disability is first of all a child…From a psychological and pedagogical points of view, one must treat the child with a disability in the same way as a normal one” (Vygotsky, 1995, p.4)

“A disability in and of itself is not a tragedy. It is only an occasion to provoke a tragedy” (Vygotsky, 1995, np)

(Cited by Vygotsky’s daughter in Vygodskaya, 1999)

THE CHALLENGE

REFERENCES – OneBaily, F., & Pransky, K., (2005). Are “other people’s children”

constructivist learners too? Theory into Practice, 44(1), 19-26.

Berk, L., & Winsler, A. (1995). Scaffolding children’s learning: Vygotsky and early childhood education. Washington. D.C.: National Association for the Education of Young Children.

Demetrion, G. (1999). A scaffolding paradigm: Small group tutoring at the Bob Steele Reading Centre 1990-1995. Career and Technical Education, 9(1), 46-66.

Gindis, B. (1999). Vygotsky’s vision: Reshaping the practice of special education for the 21st century. Remedial and Special Education, 20 (6), 333-340.

Kaufman, D. (2004). Constructivist issues in language learning and teaching. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 24, pp. 303-319. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Lefrancois, G. (2001). Lifespan of children. Canada: Wadsworth.Owens, R. (1996). Language development (4th ed). Boston: Alyn

and Bacon.Rommetveit, R. (1979). On architecture of intersubjectivity. In

R. Rommetveit and R. Blaker (Eds.) Studies of language, thought and verbal communication. London: Academic Press.

REFERENCES - TwoSchaffer, H.R. (1996). Joint involvement episodes as context for

development. In H. Daniels, An introduction to Vygotsky (pp 251-280). London: Routledge.

Schneider, P., & Watkins, R. (1996). Applying Vygotskian developmental theory to language intervention. Language, Speech and Hearing Services in Schools, 27, 157-170.

Stigler, J., & Hiebert, J., (1999). The teaching gap: best ideas from the world’s teachers for improving education in the classroom. New York: Free Press.

Tharp, R., & Gallimore, R. (1988). Rousing minds to life. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.

Vigodskaya, G. (1999). Yygotsky and problems of special education. Remedial and special education, 20 (6), 330-332.

Vygotsky, L. (1962). Thought and language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Vygotsky, L.S. (1978). Mind in science: The development of higher psychological processes. M. Cole, V. John-Steiner, S. Scribner, & E. Sourberman, Eds. & Trans. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Vygotsky, L. (1995). Problemy defectology [Problems of defectology]. Moscow: Prosvecshenie Press.

Wood, D., Bruner, J., & Ross, G., (1976). The role of tutoring in problem-solving. Journal of Child Psychology & Psychiatry, 17, 89-100.

Author: Dr. Jill Duncan University of Newcastle/Royal Institute for Deaf and Blind Children Parramatta, Australia Date submitted to deafed.net – September.

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