Promoting healthy cognitive development helps children reach their full potential and grow into healthy, confidant adults. Reading to your child, using language during routine activities, playing music and interacting with your baby, toddler or preschooler during playtime stimulates cognitive development. Age-appropriate toys, games, books, puzzles and art activities encourage language, problem-solving, communication and creativity, which stimulate and encourage healthy development.
Identification
Cognitive development refers to the acquisition of intellectual skills involving thinking, learning and remembering. Understanding and using language is one aspect of cognitive development, as are skills such as problem-solving, reasoning, sorting and engaging in pretend play. Early childhood cognitive development refers to intellectual growth from birth to age 5.
Significance
Taking steps to stimulate and promote cognitive development during a child's earlier years gives him or her a better chance for success in high school and in life, according to the U.S. Department of Eduction. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention caution that when social, emotional and intellectual developmental needs go unmet, children are at increased risk for health problems, as well as learning and developmental delays.
Toddler Milestones
Cognitive milestones for infants up to 6 months include focusing on and visually following objects, using different cries to express hunger, pain and frustration, cooing, babbling and exploring through touching, hearing, seeing and tasting, according to the National Network for Child Care. By 12 months, infants wave, play pat-a-cake, engage in basic pretend play, follow simple directions and say a few recognizable words.
By age 2, toddlers begin to speak in sentences, recognize familiar names of people and objects, repeat words, learn to sort objects by color or shape, play make-believe and demonstrate problem-solving skills by finding hidden objects, according to Healthy Children, an online publication of the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Preschool Milestones
Cognitive milestones for 3- and 4-year-olds include speaking five- to six-word sentences, understanding concepts of counting, "same" and "different," engaging in more advanced pretend play, addressing problems from one point of view, making up stories, naming some colors, following three-part directions and gaining a better sense of time, according to Healthy Children.
By age 5, children tell longer stories, use future tense, count 10 or more objects, develop an improved sense of time, name four or more colors and demonstrate increased knowledge about common items and concepts such as food and money.
Considerations
Use milestones as a guide to gauge developmental progress. Healthy children develop at different rates and it's often normal to be slightly ahead or behind milestone guidelines. Possible factors in delayed development include genetic causes, hearing loss, sickness or lead poisoning, according to the University of Michigan Health System. In the event of developmental delay, your child's pediatrician can connect you with specialists or intervention programs suitable to your child's needs.
References
- U.S. Department of Education: Early Childhood Cognitive Development
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: Child Development and Public Health
- National Network for Child Care: Infant Development
- Healthy Children: Developmental Milestones: 2 Year Olds
- Healthy Children: Developmental Milestones: 3 to 4 Year Olds
- Healthy Children: Developmental Milestones: 4 to 5 Year Olds
