The Language and Thought of the Child

Front Cover
Psychology Press, 2002 - Language Arts & Disciplines - 294 pages

This book is for anyone who has ever wondered how a child develops language, thought, and knowledge. Before this classic appeared, little was known of the way children think. In 1923, however, Jean Piaget, the most important developmental psychologist of the twentieth century, took the psychological world by storm with The Language and Thought of the Child. Applying for the first time the insights of social psychology and psychoanalysis to the observation of children, he uncovered the ways in which a child actively constructs his or her understanding of the world through language. The book has since been a source of inspiration and guidance to generations of parents and teachers. While its conclusions remain contentious to this very day, few can deny the huge debt we owe to this pioneering work in our continuing attempts to understand the minds of the child.

 

Contents

The Functions of Language in Two Children of Six
1
Conclusions 33366
35
Types and Stages in the Conversation
50
Collaboration
61
Primitive argument
68
Understanding and Verbal Explanation
76
The factors of understanding
120
Conclusion The question of stages and
126
Questions not expressed under the form
202
Questions of reality and history
210
Questions about human actions
217
The decline of precausality
226
The Measure of Egocentric Language
242
APPENDIX
287
INDEX 293
100

Some Peculiarities of Verbal Understanding
129
The Questions of a Child of Six
165

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About the author (2002)

Jean Piaget (1896-1980) Psychologist and pioneer in the study of child intelligence. His work is world-renowned and has had a profound effect on the fields of psychology, sociology, education, and law.

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