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As the other chapters in this volume make clear, Vygotsky's (1978) notion of the zone of proximal development has stimulated a considerable body of recent research. It is interesting to note that two distinct types of research have begun to emerge. Although the primary issues are different in each, they both flow from the general view of learning and development espoused by Vygotsky.Vygotsky defined the zone of proximal development as the distance between the level of performance that a child can reach unaided and the level of participation that she or he can accomplish when guided by another, more knowledgeable individual. For a given child and a particular domain, this Preparation of this chapter and the research described therein were supported by grants HD-05951 and HD-15808 from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

An initial study examined the relation between current developmental levels, as estimated by IQ, and proximal levels of development, as estimated by the efficiency of learning and transfer in assisted contexts. 8-11-year-old children learned to solve letter series completion problems with the aid of graduated sequences of prompts. Maintenance and transfer were later assessed using similar prompting procedures. Both IQ and age effects were found. Average-IQ (and younger) children required more assistance than high-IQ (and older) children to achieve the same mastery level on the original problem types. In addition to this difference in learning efficiency, average-versus high-IQ students, and younger versus older children, subsequently diverged in the number of prompts they needed as the transfer problems differed increasingly from the ones originally learned. In a second study, amount of assistance required in learning was found to be quite stable across moderately related tasks (letter series and progressive matrices). Assistance needed in maintenance and transfer appeared less stable but was also significantly correlated across tasks. Theoretical and clinical implications are discussed.

An initial study examined the relation between current developmental levels, as estimated by IQ, and proximal levels of development, as estimated by the efficiency of learning and transfer in assisted contexts. 8-11-year-old children learned to solve letter series completion problems with the aid of graduated sequences of prompts. Maintenance and transfer were later assessed using similar prompting procedures. Both IQ and age effects were found. Average-IQ (and younger) children required more assistance than high-IQ (and older) children to achieve the same mastery level on the original problem types. In addition to this difference in learning efficiency, average-versus high-IQ students, and younger versus older children, subsequently diverged in the number of prompts they needed as the transfer problems differed increasingly from the ones originally learned. In a second study, amount of assistance required in learning was found to be quite stable across moderately related tasks (letter series and progressive matrices). Assistance needed in maintenance and transfer appeared less stable but was also significantly correlated across tasks. Theoretical and clinical implications are discussed.

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This research examined the structure underlying preschoolers' knowledge of counting. Factor analysis indicated that three first-order factors and one higher order factor accounted for 57 % of the variance in performance on a variety of counting tasks. The results are consistent with a model of early number competence that has three basic components: (1) a verbal component involving knowledge of the conventional number-word sequence, (2) an action component involving knowledge of tagging behaviors in object-counting procedures, and (3) a contextual component involving knowledge of the basic goals and uses of counting.

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