10th Parenting –Observing a Child: Cognitive Development

Counting number 1 to 10 in different contexts

Cognitive development in early childhood

Cognitive development functions such as learning, memory, and language. It is an important milestone in early childhood development. New parents always worried about their children in cognitive delay. They have problems with thinking and can sometimes be referred to as an intellectual disability. Parents tend to have these questions:

1. My child does not respond by waving and gesturing or pointing to objects by age 1?
2. My child cannot follow simple instructions (eg. give or take) and does not imitate actions or words by age 2?
3. My child cannot count 1 to 10 by age 3?

So, what are the ideas from the experts to answer these questions?

Cognitive Development by Laura Berk

Laura Berk, renowned professor and researcher, presents the latest theories and findings in the field to students in a manageable and relevant way. Berk’s signature storytelling style invites students to actively learn beside the text’s “characters,” who experience real issues in development, including physical, cognitive, and peer challenges, as well as parenting and educational concerns. He also supported Jean Piaget’ cognitive theory as I will discuss later.

Source

Berk (2012, p. 408) emphasized that milestones for 3-4 years children
(1) Understand the symbolic function of drawings and of models of real-world
spaces.
(2) Grasps conservation, reasons about transformations, reverses thinking, and understands cause-and-effect relationships in familiar contexts.
(3) Sorts familiar objects into hierarchically organized categories.
(4) Distinguishes appearance from reality.
(5) Uses private speech to guide behavior during challenging tasks.
(6) Sustained attention and planning improve.
(7) Uses scripts to recall familiar experiences.
(8) Understand that both beliefs and desires determine behavior.
(9) Knows meaning of numbers up to ten, counts correctly and grasps cardinality

I carried out a “number test” to my daughter, Grace when she was 3 years old as shown in picture above. At first, I put saucers with same colours on a table. I requested her to count. Without any hesitation, she can count 1 to 10 corretly. Later on, I arranged in different patterns. She managed to count it very fast as well. Lastly, she paused a while before counting the saucers with different colours. She have to count them few times to make sure her answer is correct. Overall, she can count number 1 to 10 regardless colours and alignments of the saucers. She learns to grasps conservation, reasons about transformations, and reverses thinking in familiar contexts.

Let’s hear from another expert.

Cognitive Development by Jean Piaget

Preoperational Stage of Cognitive Development (2-7 years)

image source

Jean Piaget (1896–1980) Cognitive Developmental Theory. His view of cognitive development was influenced by his biological concepts of adaptation—the tendency to fit with the environment to meet one’s goal and organization—the tendency to integrate particular observations into coherent knowledge (Berk, 2013, p. 19). As discussed previously, Grace can count number 1 to 10 regardless different colours and alignments of the saucers (adaptation). She also can put objects in a series (organization).

Grace (3 Years) is categorized into Piaget’s preoperational stage (2 – 7 years). Firstly, her language developed from simple to complex use of grammatical structures in speech development. In Make-believe play in a running record of kitchen, Grace has practice a wide variety of mental abilities, including sustained attention, memory, logical reasoning, language and literacy, imagination, creativity, understanding of emotions, and the ability to reflect on her thinking and take another’s perspective. For an example, she learns from her nephew in building blocks with more complex combinations (like aeroplane, car, and tricycle).

Dual presentation of symbols

Piaget’s another cognitive idea is dual representation that symbols can be presented in different forms such as photographs, models, and maps (Berk, 2013, p. 243). To practice his idea, Grace first listen to a bible story and see the Adam’s picture in the book. Then, her father builds Adam’ model using sticks. Later she able to construct Adam using magnetic puzzle. She transfers her understanding of symbol (Adam) to a new form.

Conclusion

From my discussions above, I can see that Berk’ research and Cognitive Developmental Theory contributing to early child development. As a father and also a teacher, I considers works from Piaget can develop an increased understanding of learning, motivation and behaviour. By integrating his theory into daily life an bring out the effective change to the children development.

To be continue…

References

Berk, L. E. (2013). Child Development, 9th Edition. Toronto: Pearson.

_________ (2014). Development through the Lifespan, 6th Edition. Toronto: Pearson.

Berk, L. E. & Meyers A. B. (2012). Infants, Children, and Adolescents, 7th Edition. Toronto: Pearson.

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0 to 12 months developmental milestones
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