L. S. Vygotski`s Theory of Development of Higher Psychological Processes

Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky has figured prominently in American Psychology since the publication in 1962 of his monograph Thought and Language. Five years ago, at the urging of Vygosty’s student Alexander Luria, we agreed to edit a collection of Vygotsky’s essays which would reflect the general theoretical enterprise of which the study of the relation between though and language was one important aspect. Luria made available to us rough translations of two of Vygotsky´s works. The first, “Tool and Symbol in Children´s Development” (1930), had never been published. The second was a translation of a monograph entitled The History of the Development of Higher Psychological Functions, which appeared in the second volume of Vygotsky´s writings published in Moscow in 1960. A cursory study of these essays quickly convinced us that de scope of Vygotsky`s work reached considerably beyond Thought and Language. Furthermore we came to believe that the image of Vygotsky as a sort of early neobehaviorist of cognitive development―an impression held by many of our colleagues―was strongly believed by these two works.