Wallon, Henri

(1879-1962)

   psychologist

   Born in Paris, Henri Wallon was a founder of the society for a new French educational system and served as secretary-general of national education and as a Communist deputy (1945-46). He presided over the commission for educational reform (Langevin-Wallon, project, 1945). An authority on infant psychology, he emphasized the interdependence of biological (maturation of the nervous system) and social factors in psychological development. in contrast to Jean Piaget, he affirmed that this was achieved by a discontinuous succession of stages, the passage from one to the other not being a simple amplification but a revision or brusque transformation. This idea was of the development of thought was itself based on observation. it was in agreement with the principles of dialectical and historical materialism. Wallon's principal writings include L'Enfant turbulent, 1925; L'Évolution psychologique de l'enfant, 1941; De l'Acte à la pensée, 1942; and Les Origines de la pensée chez l'enfant, 1945.