What is the meaning of cognitive ability? What is cognitive thinking and how to develop it in a child? These are important questions we will discuss and analyze in this article.
Human cognitive abilities given by nature, it is important to develop, starting in infancy and throughout life. Cognitive this cognitive process, in which processing occurs with the consciousness of the incoming information, her mind’s transformation into the knowledge, possession, and use of lessons learned in daily life. In simple words it is a mental functions: attention, perception, speech, intelligence, aptitude to learning, and most importantly thinking.
From the moment of birth, cognitive ability of the child in need of development, this should be one of the important tasks of parents. Beliefs and attitudes are established from an early age, the task of the family is to help the child to see reality clearly, without distorting the reality. Therefore, the mission of parents are very important, they lay the first seeds of the adult adequate thinking their child.
Theory of child cognitive development Jean piaget
Theory Jean piaget developed in the last century, but its relevance does not lose till now. What is his great idea? According to the Swiss psychologist, children undergo four main stages of cognitive development, each of which occurs a significant change in their understanding of the world.
The children are not dumber than adults, they simply think differently. It’s a little scientists, trying to explore the world around them.
If you look a little deeper into these words, we can see the main idea, which was trying to bring the pioneer. According to piaget’s first cognitive development involves processes based on the action, and only then manifests in the changes of mental processes.
Cognitive development in children piaget was divided into 4 main stages:
- Sensorimotor stage. Toddlers acquire knowledge through sensory experiences and manipulating objects of reality.
- The preoperative stage. Children learn about the world through play. Trying to understand your logic and to grasp the logic of the middle, they come into communication.
- Stage of concrete operations. Children begin to think more logically, but their thinking still do not have the flexibility of thinking of the adult. They don’t quite understand the abstraction and hypothetical, only the specifics.
- Stage of formal operations. Phase involves the development of logic, ability to use deductive reasoning and to understand abstract ideas, maturity of the child. According to piaget, it is formally logical intelligence is the pinnacle of the development of human intelligence.
Test the level of egocentrism Jean piaget
Another experiment was the fact that the child has consistently asked two questions: first how many brothers and sisters, the second how many brothers and sisters his brother or sister. The answer to the second question was one less than in the first. This has been interpreted as the fact that the child does not consider himself a brother or sister, that is not aware of that may not be the Central object.
Interesting to know:
Jean piaget first, but not the only one dealing with the cognitive development of children.
The work of Vygotsky and piaget’s work, for many years was inaccessible to many psychologists because of the language barrier, as Vygotsky wrote in his native language and managed to do so many die at a fairly young age. Nevertheless, his idea that cognitive development is a result of interaction between cultural and historical factors, is very important. He assumed that the development process includes three main components: the use of language, the role of culture and the zone of proximal development of the child.
Factors that affect the cognitive development of children
- The scheme of action. The main goal of intelligent behavior, or thinking, piaget considered adaptation to the environment. Ways of adaptation of named schemas. The schema is a recurring structure or organization of actions in certain situations. It can be simple movements, complex motor skills or mental actions. This is what shapes our life beliefs. Laid in childhood, through biological characteristics of perception and social frameworks.
- Assimilation. Baby feeds to enable new information to previously existing schemas. It is quite difficult to implement in real life. This process is somewhat subjective, because we tend to try to change a little new experience or information obtained in order to fit under the already-formed beliefs.
- Accommodation. It includes the change of existing schemas or ideas as a result of new information or new experiences. During this process, can be developed and a completely new scheme.
- Trim. Piaget believed that as you progress through the stages of cognitive development, it is important to maintain a balance between the application of pre-formed knowledge (i.e., assimilation) and changing behavior in accordance with the new information (accommodation). Equilibration helps explain how children are able to move from one stage of thinking to another, balancing in different situations, to show resistance to stress.
How to develop cognitive abilities in children?
Cognitive skills are important to develop since childhood. Nowadays there are a lot of fashionable toys, cartoon characters, living dolls, collectible toy cars but does not need to neglect easy methods of development games with improvised household materials.
Cognitive abilities in young children can be developed in the following ways:
- games with cereals and buttons (of course, under the supervision and control of adults), pouring materials from the container into the container.
For example:
- The game is Looking for the secret, you could not only handle, but also toys, various objects, large beans. Invite a child to find them.
- The game Plasticine fantasies, cereals, legumes, pasta, nuts are perfect as additional accessories to work with clay.
- playing with water (pouring containers, water play sets for children, table water games)
Gradually, games and activities become more complex and focused on the development of motor skills and speech:
- drawing and coloring;
- compilation of puzzles, puzzle;
- cut the image along the contour;
- design;
- learning poems;
- reading and retelling;
- finding differences in two identical pictures;
- story writing.
Also, we should not neglect the special exercises for the development of cognitive abilities of your child:
Do I need to worry if you think your child is delayed in cognitive development?
First, be patient. It is a proven fact that there are sensitive periods for learning language, and for the development of other skills such as motor skills, cognitive development, reading, etc. But guided by the theory of piaget, we must not forget that the baby’s development is a continuous process which moves gradually. Every child has more time to spend on the development of skills and less on the development of another, and can learn something prematurely. Despite the fact that this is only a summary of the theory of piaget and the various stages in the development of children, it should be noted that this is only approximate data concerning the age, so we can draw conclusions about existing statistics. Sometimes some children need more time to acquire some skill. But this does not mean that in this case there are problems or developmental pathology.
Remember that a child of three can not cheat (hence the saying: the mouth of Babes the truth). They only give you an idea about their worldview, via their own window. Therefore, try to understand that they are not yet adults. They are just learning to develop in a world where they are more independent in the future. But since the birth, they make great and very important achievements at each stage to learn something new. We adults must learn everything you can learn about the world. Then to share with kids our knowledge, to help them move forward and overcome any obstacles.
You should support your child so he doesn’t feel usamljena and not gained an inferiority complex. No need to focus on his failures, but always praise for the victory.
The theory of piaget, in addition to the explanation of the various stages of development in children, describes the magic of children.
From the point of view of their egocentric thinking, their curiosity about the world that surrounds, and their innocence. And it makes us think and realize that we, adults, must learn to understand our children, to support them, encourage and make them happy and loved at every stage of their development.
References:
- L. F. Obukhova. Children (age) psychology . Textbook, Moscow, Russian pedagogical Agency. 1996
- Jean Piaget. The speech and thinking of children. 1932
- Kulagina I. Y., Kolyutsky V. N. Developmental psychology: the Full life cycle of human development. M.: shopping center Sfera, 2006.
- Ushakov D. V. Structure and dynamics of intellectual abilities: Sciences. M., 2004.
- Jean Piaget. Psychology of intelligence. 1942
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