Vygotsky criticised Piaget’s emphasis on the child’s interaction with the environment, claiming that Piaget ignores the role of social interaction. Vygotsky, in contrast, sees the child as an apprentice who learns through interacting with others rather than as a scientist acting alone.Vygotsky claims that children experience abrupt changes in their ability to solve problems. This is the result of being taught culturally specific mediators by others which then allow them to think at a higher level.

Piaget believed that there is a qualitative as well as a quantitative difference in the intelligence of young children, compared with older children and adults. There is a quantitative difference because adults have more knowledge of the world and there is a qualitative difference because children do not use the same logic in their thinking as adults do. Children's logic changes as they develop though the four stages (see below).