Cognitive Skills

Children’s brains develop as they have new experiences. You cannot see the brain developing, but you can see what new things the child can do.

Cognitive skill development in children involves the progressive building of learning skills, such as attention, memory and thinking. These crucial skills enable children to process information and eventually learn to evaluate, analyze, remember, make comparisons and understand cause and effect. Although some cognitive skill development is related to a child’s genetic makeup, most cognitive skills are learned. This means that thinking and learning skills can be improved with practice and the right training.

Your child’s cognitive skills development will make huge advances in the first six years. During this time, you will find your child beginning to make connections and understand the relationship between the objects and people around him. As he continues to make huge advances physically and mentally, his abilities should likewise grow.

Involve yourself as a parent in your child’s early cognitive skills development. This gives your child an early advantage. A recommended approach is to involve your child in his own learning. His early participation determines his success in later life.

Some of the changes in our children are not so easy to spot, particularly cognitive changes. Children’s brains develop as they have new experiences. You cannot see the brain developing, but you can see what new things the child can do.

Your 3 year old is starting to understand the concepts of time and is able to differentiate between “now”, “soon” and “later”. He is starting to sort objects on the basis of one attribute such as shape, size or colour. He will now slowly be able to understand the concept of size, as he begins to understand which object is bigger when compared to others. He will now know his own age and can show it on his fingers when asked. Although his attention span is better than what it was, he can still become easily distracted. The “Why” & “How” questions will become part of your daily discussions has he becomes more curious about the world around him. Activities that can help in your 3 year old’s Cognitive skill development:

• Help your child make connections between letters and objects. As an example, show him the letters “cat” and then help him identify an actual cat in real life.
• Sorting objects will develop his ability to sort, order and classify objects according to color, shape and size.
• Play a memory game with your child by helping him match the right words and their respective pictures
• Provide your child with puzzles such as shape sorters or tray puzzles which will allow him to learn about different shapes and spaces
• Choose a category like a color or a shape. Then take turns finding an example from your surroundings. For example, find all items that are blue or round.