Considering Cognitive Development
Cognitive development is the development of your child’s ability to use his mind, imagination, creativity, and problem-solving skills, allowing him to organize his ideas and thoughts and make sense of the world around him. He begins to develop an understanding of concepts – shapes, colors, time – through different methods, including playing, talking, listening to you, asking questions, and imitating. He also learns by using his senses – watching, touching, tasting, smelling, and listening.
Your baby needs stimulation. Support his cognitive development by encouraging regular play activities and showing him repeatedly how to do things. He learns by copying you. Let him go at his own pace and give him plenty of encouragement and praise when he gets it right.
The age at which your child acquires knowledge and understanding depends on his genetic pattern of development and how much play and stimulating activity he takes part in. However, you can look out for some milestones, which we describe in the next three sections.
From birth to 24 months
From the moment he’s born, your child discovers the relationship between his body and environment. He relies on his senses – seeing, touching, feeling, and sucking – to learn. By experimenting, he starts to develop an awareness of himself as being separate from his environment. He begins to realize that he can move things with his hands. A major breakthrough comes at around 4 months, when your baby discovers that objects are permanent and don’t disappear just because he can’t see them. After your child grasps this concept, he starts experimenting to see what happens: He may pull a pillow towards him when a toy is sat on it, or squash a teddy so that he can push it through the bars of his cot. Help your child’s development by playing games such as peek-a-boo, making him realize that you don’t disappear behind a pair of hands. Try doing the same with his toys: put Teddy behind your back and then reproduce him with a flourish.
From 2 to 4 years
At this age, your child’s speech is egocentric, relating everything to himself – for example, ‘My toy’. Don’t worry – he’s supposed to think that he’s the center of the universe at this stage! Your child has a hard time understanding the world from any perspective other than his own – hence the temper tantrums and the ‘Me! Me! Me!’ attitude. He begins to use symbols, words, and language, but he’s not really thinking logically at this stage. By 3 years, your child’s much better at communicating and tries to use words to understand his world. He’s very imaginative and responsive at this stage. Foster your child’s intellectual development by giving him lots of picture books and reading to him regularly. Games that encourage thinking skills are a good idea – try paints, crayons, alphabet games, and jigsaws. Encourage his imagination by letting him dress up in different costumes and play in different environments such as water and sand.
From 4 to 7 years
From age 4 years, your child’s speech is more social and less egocentric. He understands logical concepts but still focuses attention on one aspect and ignores other parts of an object. He responds to your dos and don’ts and is capable of problem-solving, such as basic sums.
By 4 years, your child forms complete sentences and has a vocabulary of around 1,540 words. He’s very inquisitive, questioning, and imaginative. Books, jigsaws, construction sets such as Lego, and dressing-up boxes are great ways of helping him to express himself.
By 5 years, his vocabulary has grown to around 2,070 words and he can tell longer stories. He reads his own name, counts up to 20, and knows his colors and textures. He begins to question the meaning of words and understands the difference between what’s real and what’s not. He reasons, based on his experiences. Visits to museums and zoos encourage him to explore his environment at this age.
From 7 years, your child reasons logically and organizes his thoughts. He can still only think about physical objects though, and he isn’t capable of abstract reasoning. He starts to lose his egocentric thinking pattern at this age. He can now do multiple tasks, for example arithmetic – encourage this by setting him sums, giving him an abacus, and choosing games and cards that encourage numerical awareness.
Keep on top of the teaching methods his school uses (such as using a phonetic alphabet), and be consistent when you’re helping your child at home. There’s quite enough for him to take in at this stage, without the added confusion of different learning styles!
Posted in Children's Health
