Cognitive skills are a person’s ability to process the information and experiences (stimuli) they come across to generate some meaningful learning out of those information and experiences which is further put into use and/or retrieved as and when required. It involves a set of skills such as Memory, Attention, Reasoning, Decision making, Language etc.
When it comes to Children, their prefrontal cortex is still developing which is responsible for a number of cognitive functions and brain in general, has immense capacity to learn as the young brains are like sponge and plastic which means they have the ability to change and strengthen neural connections through repeated actions and absorb things. Thus, giving children an environment and challenges to practice cognitive skills hold immense importance. Having mentioned the concept of neuroplasticity, it is important to bring about the need of practicing cognitive skills and why it is important for children.
It helps in understanding the cause and effect. When a person doesn’t work hard to what happens when an apple falls from a tree, practicing cognitive skills enables a child to draw conclusions from observations. The learning can be put into use for a number of similar situations without having to experience the same cause and effect repeatedly, is referred to learning from mistakes or experiences.
Memory plays an important role if practiced properly. It can assist the child in various academic and non academic endeavours. For instance, a child’s ability to remember directions to his/her school or a friend’s home is an activity to memory and crucial too.
Attention is another cognitive function need to be practiced to avoid increasing cases of ADHD. It’s a medical condition. But for those undiagnosed focussing on ‘task at hand’ is important as kids get distracted easily. Kindergarteners have relatively short attention span of around 15 minutes but with growth the ability to focus gets better. However, a close eye to attention practice is must for the children.
Decision Making is an essential skill to be taught in order to construct confident decisive individual. It is very important to give simple choices to young children and encourage them to make decisions with confidence and no force.
Inhibition helps to filter response which comes naturally. Manners taught to children should be at an early age and careful modelling of parents in etiquettes must serve as an example to them. Constructive disagreements should be favoured.
By practicing cognitive skills children will make themselves a better responsible. It is of paramount importance to make children aware of the tools available and take advantage of such opportunities.
Mahjabeen KHAN 