The Role of Zone of Proximate Development in Interactive Assessment of Intellectual Development

The process of intellectual ontogenetic development has been studied by many prominent psychologists. However, there are few works, which consider the zone of proximate development during assessment of intellectual development. The present study is an attempt of elaboration and application of such procedure to children who live in different social and economic conditions. 1120 Mexican school children of both sexes from different levels of living (rural, suburban, lower urban and higher urban) were selected. The age of children was from 6 to 12 years. Each socio-economic group consisted of 280 children: 20 children from each school grade. The Scheme of Evaluation of Intellectual Development was elaborated and applied to all children. The Scheme represents the evaluation of the zone of proximate development as the plan of fulfilment of the experimental task after presentation of orientation base of action. The Scheme consists of two intellectual tasks, which are presented in different plans of intellectual development: verbal, images or actions. The results showed impossibility of execution of the initial task. The analyses of variance pointed out significant difference between the groups. However, after the orientation base of action has been provided, the majority of children who had failed in the initial task was able to realise it on different levels. Significant difference was found only for levels of helping during presentation of orientation base of action. These results show the ability of children from all groups to work in the zone of proximate development and realise the intellectual task after previous orientation. According to our study children are able to achieve verbal level, which indicate existence of broad zone of proximate development. The discussion is based on the paper of the zone of proximate development and of the orientation base of action given by adult.