Henri Wallon: An interacionist theorist

The changes between children and others are very important for the development of people. Children born in a cultural and symbolic world, which they will be involved in a "subjective syncretism" for, at least, three years. As Piaget, Wallon says that there are development steps, but, for him, children and grow up people are not capable to develop without conflicts.

Wallon, just like Vygotsky, believes that the social interaction is fundamental. In the first year of life, a child goes through a fase called impulsive-emotional, which his/her relations with the world are intermediated with the emotions. Until their three years-old, the fase is sensory-motor, which the logical of the kid is related cognitively to the environmet. From their three years-old to six years-old, the children begin to form their personality. It gives meaning to the action itself and the continue use of the word 'mine', called personalistic. By their six years-old, in the categorial fase, advances in intelligence happen. In the teenage fase, there are personal and moral questions, predominating the affection.

Jean Piaget and his contribution to the education

According to J. Piaget, a man builds his knowledge from his internal machanisms genetically trained. He believes that the interaction between development and learning is based on the idea of interaction between organism and environment, which predominates the biologic factors instead of the external ones. His researches established that the development and the learning happen through a fixed sequency and universal steps, equal for all people.

So, in this way of thinking, defining each step of development, Piaget contributed for that the teachers make specific activities for the stages listed. Where children go from the individual to social.