A Piagetian Perspective on Thinking and Language

Author(s): James Youniss

Source: The Journal of Education , May/1974, Vol. 156, No. 2 (May/1974), pp. 43-51
Published by: Sage Publications, Inc.

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/42741889

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 A Piagetian Perspective on
Thinking and Language

James Youniss
The Catholic University
Washington, D.C.

In applying Piaget's theory of intellectual development, educators have to revise sev-

eral common assumptions. Three ideas seem especially important: Knowledge must be
seen as self constructed; development should be viewed as a self-regulated process; and
sensation and action should be accepted as forms of knowing rather than incomplete
bits which wait for language for their completion. Studies of deaf children, without a
socialized symbol system during their early years, indicate the autonomy of intellectual
development. While most teachers agree that schooling should challenge thinking, they
fall back on language instruction in classroom situations. Piaget's theory provides a new
definition of thinking in which the child can be trusted to develop with language given
a legitimate but not dominant role.

This paper is addressed to the consensus viewpoint in psychology and

education which puts language and thinking together in an indissociable
relationship. There is new evidence which questions this assumption:
empirical observations on the development of thinking in deaf persons
shows that severe language restrictions need have no debilitating effects
on thinking. There is also a "new" theoretical perspective, Piaget's the-
ory, which explains why thinking can remain integral without being
caused or stimulated by full participation in a culture's natural language.
Educators have shown interest in Piaget's work for the past decade.
They have applied his theory in a variety of ways from curriculum plan-
ning to classroom methodology. Yet there has been little noticeable
change with respect to the language emphasis in daily instruction even
though the language- thinking relationship is one of the clearest redefini-
tions Piaget's theory calls for.
Apparently it is easier to see some aspects of Piaget's theory than others.
His definition of the child as the active constructor of his world makes
better sense than viewing the child as a passive participant in learning.
It is apparently also obvious to teachers that education should go beyond
the goal of imparting information; whenever possible, the child's think-
ing should be challenged.

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 44 BOSTON UNIVERSITY

But in both of these examp

with the basic definition of t
know, and ultimately what
the questions for which Piag
taining such a perspective and
cult task.

Research With the Deaf

It was through our work wit

question the consensus viewp
thinking. This work further
effort to explain why deaf ch
deficits in thinking despite th
tems.

We began our research program in 1960 when the psychological litera-

ture was characterizing deaf persons as "perceptually bound," "rigid,"
"limited to concrete thinking," "unable to make articulate figure-ground
distinctions," etc. These descriptions all made sense in the context of the
then prevailing assumption that the key to mature thought was based on
acquisition of language, its internalization, and finally acceding to its
forms which could become the form of thinking.
Our studies were begun in order to study this position more carefully.
We were going to take advantage of the natural experiment occasioned
by deafness. Here were individuals who, because they could not hear,
generally did not acquire the natural language of their culture. More-
over, because most deaf children are born to hearing parents who do not
know the American Sign Language, there is little opportunity for them
to acquire the language used by most deaf adults. We thus expected to
find out when and how deaf children's development would begin to de-
viate from hearing, speaking children and from this to understand better
the language-thinking relationship.
It is now 14 years and several experiments later. We do know more
about the language-thinking relationship and therefore our research
strategy was successful. But this success was not due to identification of
paths of deviancy; on the contrary, it stems from the fact that deaf peo-
ple manifested more similarities than differences when compared with
hearing persons. The issue which these results brought into focus was
not "What substitutes for language do deaf children use?" but, "What is
thinking?"

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 JOURNAL OF EDUCATION 45

Before summarizing our interpretation

tion, it is important to understand the na
tions which brought us to this point. Man
are presented in Furth (1966) and a mor
Furth (1971). The following are the key
work.

1. In the main, deaf children up to ado

advances on tasks of thinking similar to
peers.
2. Similarities cover a broad scope of as
thinking. These include: dealing with ab
ples to conceptual cases; using logical op
concerning physical phenomena; and bei
logical systematic way.
3. Where differences have been noted,
deaf subjects have benefitted from supp
ing. Even these differences, however, do n
guage insofar as they apply equally to h
non middle-class milieus. In several stud
formance differences, follow-up work in
American Indian or other rural groups.
periential rather than linguistic deficits w
4. The nature of similarity was often e
mental progression and this indicated th
changes observed in deaf and hearing su
developmental mechanisms.

Piageťs Insights

Why does Piaget argue that language is

intellectual development? This question
viewpoints. The primary reason is that t
with operational knowing. The person k
from action, coordinates the abstractions,
tems. Action is not just a prelingual form
mode in which even the adult mind functions. Mental actions are not
mediators between the outer world of energy and overt behavior; instead,
with them the person defines the external world and employs behavior
for the sake of adaptation (Piaget, 1971).
While others see language as an efficient way for the culture to transmit

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 46 BOSTON UNIVERSITY

its ideas to the child and as

denies that the child must
In his theory, the world of o
itself known; rather, the chi
objects by his action structu
erate new formal properties.
Language and other symbo
task of construction. They m
structures, but the structure
referred to by arbitrary an
language as a rule system-
coordinated with the structu
causative bases of it, perhap
The very difficult part to g
a self-instructor who already
edge out of his actions. The
inevitably control action and
cult notion is that of abstrac
Most of us tend to think of
jects and finding them agai
phasis is given to taking gen
coordinating them, and pr
The notion of "number" is
number as an innate catego
outside world with help fro
source. That is, the child con
tions on the world of marble
quences. When he groups fou
up-to-down or two-and-two
a single quantity. The data
inevitably leads to number
Regarding the deaf person
to operational knowing. He
be, an intellectual peer of h
culturally given tools to ex
to reflect on his own actions and coordinate them to achieve a structured
relationship with the world. In fact, as a free actor on his environment,
he cannot but be forming structures which are functionally valid.

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JOURNAL OF EDUCATION 47

The Broader Insight

It is probably no accident that Piage

chologists and educators at a time wh
behavioristic underpinnings. In the la
ers started to question learning theor
which guided them. This self-criticis
many of which predate psychology as a
commented that a person walking int
Babel and must wonder when the tow
Part of the confusion can be traced to
attempts to "re-do" theory remain gr
Throwing away the language of assoc
a doomed effort, because the same old
concepts.
I think that part of the attraction to
its potential for a new perspective. P
parison of his position with standard
ple seem intuitively to grasp the oppor
yond our present mired state.
By holding on to behavior as the start
initiative for structuring the world, Pi
ferent psychological epistemology. H
environment or positing third partie
transcend the confines of immediate re
its own restructuring. In short, beha
resymbolizes it but because old structu
ways of knowing in order to remain co
Finally, Piaget does not deny the use
participation. He sees its role through
lescence when formal structurings of t
when the person has abstracted from e
to represent formal objects. But even
ing; rather it complements it (cf., Furt

Educational Implications

It is not a long leap to go from our

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 48 BOSTON UNIVERSITY

theory and then to the classr

definition of thinking appl
principles are outlined here
While perhaps a more sweep
have suggested, the present o
from which each educator
his own course of action.
1. Knowledge
Most teachers today would agree that schools cannot focus soley on
information. Its sheer quantity and constant change prevents it from be-
ing even a primary aim. On the other hand, thinking (knowing) seems
more sensible, since by definition it transcends particular content and is
long-term in nature.
For Piaget". . . To know objects it is necessary to act on them, to
break them down, and to reconstruct them . . . Assimilating an object
means participating in the systems of transformations that go to produce
it . . ." (Piaget & Inhelder, 1971, xiii).
To appreciate this conception, one must drop the idea that knowledge
exists outside the person and can be transferred to him by short-cuts such
as language. This is not a blind denial of language's advantages. It is in-
stead a clear assertion that verbal symbols are only as good as the intelli-
gence of theperson who employs them.
While all good teachers recognize the dangers of pseudo-verbal concepts
and try to guard against them, too often one verbal expression is allowed
to substitute for another. Fundamentally what is required is a clean break
from verbal emphases in favor of having the child deal directly with ac-
tions whose role is defining objects.
This insight holds not just for mathematical concepts, in which opera-
tions seem obvious, but for social, moral, and value content as well. Re-
ligious educators have only recently awakened to this issue, but, despite
the lag, it is not surprising that the "new" teaching of morality like "new
math" is based upon experiencing and acting out in social situations
rather than rehearsing verbal truths.

2. Development

Piaget holds that development is a self-regulated process in which the

person restructures his abstractions from actions for the end result of
forming a stable world marked by consistency (cf., Piaget, 1971). This
viewpoint clashes with our cultural view which tends to see development
as the externally induced "making of a mature person/'

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 JOURNAL OF EDUCATION 49

Elementary textbooks used to include a p

fant looking out of his crib into a haze- "
sion." This powerfully stated the position
adults, the child was doomed to imprisonm
ety's function to pull him out of childhoo
The equivalent in education is found in m
now widespread movement for ever earlie
the earlier education begins, the earlier r
earlier the child begins to read, the faster h
thought and participate in the adult's wor
No one has yet demonstrated intellectual
rapid development. Why we force early tr
printed symbols tells more about our cult
ment than first meets the eye. That reading
criterion for classifying children's capacity
historians.

Meanwhile by misunderstanding development in this sense, thinking

itself often goes unattended. Children are allowed to accumulate stores
of verbal formulas without being required to put operational sense into
them. The result is unfortunately clear; students psychologically drop out
of schooling and invest their energies in objects that they can under-
stand in action. They may play out the school routine until age 18, but
their thinking selves are reserved for after 3 p.m. when they act like
competent mechanics, photographers, musicians, or whatever will allow
them to be literally where the action is. This is where they find themselves
developing.

3. Return to Sensory and Motor Life

Piaget is not alone in encouraging an epistemological break from con-

ventional psychology. An equally articulate advocate is found in Rudolph
Arnheim who has made his life's work the study of art and visual think-
ing. Part of his argument rests on a reconception of the senses as highly
sophisticated processes of the mind. This is to be contrasted with the
more typical view that our sense provide the mind with raw impressions,
which in their impoverished condition require the "mind" (language) to
convert them to a higher order.
In his classic paper, "The Myth of the Bleating Lamb," Arnheim pre-
sents the case succinctly. In arguing against linguistic determinism he
demonstrates how all encompassing the old epistemology is: "It takes the

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 50 BOSTON UNIVERSITY

so-called higher processes

us during the six days de
beliefs began to be held-
limited almost exclusively
means of words and numb
As Piaget has done for ac
brought us so far yet left u
tool like language saves us
structuring system in itsel
language. The senses are n
Importantly we find that
accompanied by several so
simpler experiences, feeling
shift seems due to discomf
removes us from life rath
long recognized goals of h
fully is stopped by the ver
One must begin to questi
returning to our senses an
them out of our own phen

Conclusions

It may sound simplistic and impractical to suggest that educational in-

novations should follow from epistemological clarifications afforded by
Piaget's theory. This would be true if his epistemology were just another
philosophical position which dresses reality in new forms. It is important
to realize that the content of Piaget's work has been children's behavior
and not classical philosophical categories or ideas. This brings the theory
in touch with any observer of children who makes the effort to under-
stand them.

Unfortunately we have trained teachers not to observe children they see

everyday. We have taught them to ignore their own observations in favor
of test scores, for example, or to evaluate a curriculum in terms of its
rationale rather than their pupil's demonstrated comprehension of it. We
have taken away their initiative of developing teaching styles and of
understanding children, much like we attempt to take away the initiative
of self-instructing actions from children.
Meanwhile, children are clever enough to know how to use language
and not be distracted from their own development. Language can be em-

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 JOURNAL OF EDUCATION 5 1

ployed by many children to create the

and concepts they cannot understand;
and the appropriate expression of wor
content he or she represents in balanc
that characterizes deaf children has a
language given to hearing children. In
proceed on its own, despite the imped
With some effort teachers ought to be
into touch with children and their un
base, knowledge can be dealt with and
this perspective education may bring
intelligence.
Education is presently standing at the r
peting demands. These run as deep as
shallow as temporary economic exigen
signed to be solvers of such grand and
that if education is to do more than me
can focus on no better starting point th
child's mind.

References

Arnheim, R. Toward a Psychology of Art. Berkeley, Calif.: Univ. of California Press,

1966.

Beth, E. W., & J. Piaget. Mathematical Epistemology and Psychology. Dordrecht, Hol-
land: D. Reidel, 1966.
Furth, H. G. Thinking Without Language. New York: Free Press, 1966.
Furth, H. G. Piaget and Knowledge. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1969.
Furth, H. G. Linguistic deficiency and thinking: research with deaf subjects 1964-1969.
Psychological Bulletin, 1971, 76, 58-72.
Furth, H. G. & J. Youniss. Formal operations and language. International Journal of
Psychology, 1971, 6,49-64.
Piaget, J. Biology and Knowledge. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1971.
Piaget, J., & B. Inhelder. Mental Imagery in the Child. New York; Basic Books, 1971.

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