guage, a socially acquired tool, and identified stages
that begin with speech for the purpose of requests.
This speech eventually becomes internalized into
thought.
As war, poverty, famine, and social change took
their toll on the children of Russia, Vygotsky turned
his attention to children with disabilities. Considered
ahead of his time, Vygotsky suggested that children
with and without disabilities be educated together. He
recognized that necessary social and cultural develop-
ments would be more likely to occur in an integrated
environment and that isolation caused by an inability
to participate in collective activities might have an
even more deleterious effect than the original prob-
lems.
Vygotsky died of tuberculosis at age thirty-seven
before he was able to offer a comprehensive theory of
child development. His early death, Soviet dictator
Josef Stalin’s ban on Vygotsky’s works for political
reasons, the Cold War, and the popularity of Piaget’s
ideas caused Vygotsky’s theories to reach the West
slowly. Nevertheless his ideas on socialization, lan-
guage, and children with disabilities have influenced
modern child developmentalists throughout the
world.
See also: THEORIES OF DEVELOPMENT
Bibliography
Berk, Laura E., and Adam Winsler. Scaffolding Children’s Learning:
Vygotsky and Early Childhood Education. Washington, DC: Na-
tional Association for the Education of Young Children, 1995.
Kozulin, Alex. Vygotsky’s Psychology. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Uni-
versity Press, 1990.
Publications by Vygotsky
Mind in Society, edited by Michael Cole, Vera John-Steiner, Sylvia
Scribner, and Ellen Souberman. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 1978.
The Vygotsky Reader, edited by René Van Der Veer and Jaan Val-
siner. Cambridge, Eng.: Blackwell, 1994.
Carrie Lazarus
Laraine Masters Glidden
Psychologist Lev Vygotsky viewed development and learning as
partners in the creation of higher psychological functioning.
(Archives of the History of American Psychology)VYGOTSKY, LEV 429