Unknown Vygotsky: Cultural-Historical Theory in the Context of Pavlov’s Theory of Higher Nervous Activity and H. Werner’s Differential Development Theory

The position about the internal connection between the cultural-historical theory of development of higher mental functions of L.S. Vygotsky and two prominent theories of the 20th century is substatianted. Firstly, this is the theory of conditioned reflex of I.P. Pavlov, including the idea of significant qualitative difference between human higher nervous activity and human behaviour and those of animals, due to the presence of the second signal system as a “grand speech signal” in humans. Second, this is the differential theory of development by H. Werner, which fits a number of key ideas of L.S. Vygotsky about the development of speech function and the role of the word in the psychological development of a child.