From gesture to symbol: the theory of Henri Wallon about symbolic formation

Abstract

Henri Wallon, French philosopher, physician, and psychologist, has given
psychology contribution not only with his emotion theory and with his
arguments and disagreements with Jean Piaget. Among his less discussed
contributions are the theory about intelligence, the discussions about the origin
and development in children’s discoursing thought, and, maybe less known,
the reflections and propositions about the transition between sensory-motor
intelligence (characterized by the capacity to solve practical problems, but
without the aid of reflection) and discoursing intelligence (characterized by
the use and intermediation of symbols and representations). It is known that
his proposition for this transition, diversely from Piaget, who emphasizes
continuity and preparation of the symbolic attributes by sensory-motor
schematism, is in fact marked by the non-continuity between one intelligence
and the other, by the interference of external elements such as culture, social
aspects, and language, and by the complex interaction between all these
elements. In order to better understand the Wallonian proposal about symbol
formation it is necessary, therefore, to study his theory as a whole, trying to
decode his concepts on emotion, symbolic behavior, intelligence, development
factor, and so forth. In a society like ours, based on symbolic behavior,
understanding the way it occurs, its origin, and the development of symbolic thought can be worthwhile.