Today, let us discuss cognitive skills and why they are critical for children. Cognitive skills are a set of abilities every human being uses to understand and interact in the world. These skills are related to the brain and are used to carry out simple to complex tasks in our day-to-day activities.

Imagine your phone rings.

• You hear the ring
• You decide to answer the phone
• You pick up the phone and answer
• You remember the person
• You understand the emotion
• You respond

Skills used in these actions are called cognitive skills. Let us recap the above example.

• You hear the ring - Perception
• You decide to answer the phone - Decision-Making
• You pick up the phone and answer - Motor skill
• You remember the person - Memory
• You understand the emotion-social skills
• You respond - Language skills

Cognitive skills involve learning, remembering, solving problems, and paying attention to tasks. Combining all these skills, we form a knowledge source, and from this source, we use the information to deal with daily tasks. Hence the development of these skills is essential at an early age.

Important Cognitive Skills

Let us now see a list of common cognitive skills.

• Perception: Perception is the ability to capture, and process the information that our senses receive. This essential cognitive ability helps in our daily lives because it makes it possible to understand our surroundings
• Attention: Attention is the ability to concentrate. This cognitive ability is an essential function in our daily lives. You can improve attention with appropriate cognitive training.
• Memory: Working memory, also known as operative memory, is a set of processes that allow us to store and manipulate temporary information. It helps carry out complex cognitive tasks like language comprehension, reading, learning, or reasoning. 
• Motor skills: Motor skills are the movements that our bodies make to perform daily functions such as walking, lifting, moving, writing, and talking. There are two types of motor skills: fine motor skill and gross motor skills.

Fine motor skill activities require coordinating movements of the hands and fingers with the eyes, known as hand-eye coordination.

Gross motor skills are movements that involve large muscles. It involves movements like walking, jumping, and climbing stairs.

• Language: Language involves cognitive skills allowing us to translate sounds into words. This helps in generating verbal output.
• Visual and Spatial Processing: Visual-spatial processing is the ability to tell where objects are. It involves being able to tell how far the objects are from you and their distance from each other. It also involves the ability to visualize images and scenarios.
• Executive Functions: Executive functions include abilities that enable goal-oriented behaviour. These include flexibility, anticipation, problem-solving, decision-making, emotional self-regulation, sequencing and inhibitions.

That was interesting!

Cognitive Skills Every Child Should Develop

Now that you are familiar with cognitive skills let us move towards knowing their importance to children. Let us look into some cognitive skills a child should develop and how it helps the child.

• Sustained Attention: This allows a child to stay focused on a single task. With sustained attention, the child can stay focused for long periods.
• Selective Attention: Selective attention allows a child to focus on a single task despite distractions around them.
• Divided Attention: Divided attention allows a child to multitask. It helps to perform two tasks at once without forgetting information.
• Long-Term Memory: Allows children to retain information from the past. The child uses this cognitive skill when taking exams, recalling answers, or remembering names.
• Working Memory: Working memory is helpful when children have to follow a series of instructions
• Logic and Reasoning: This skill helps in better problem-solving and is useful in idea generation. It helps children when presented with difficult situations.
• Auditory and Visual Processing: Auditory processing allows a child’s brain to better analyze, blend, and segment information. Visual processing helps the child to interpret visual facts like images, graphs and maps.

Meeting the Cognitive Skill Milestones

Every individual is different. We all learn and process information in different ways, which is natural. Children learn to collect details and process it skillfully as they mature. They start understanding complex ideas. They master to focus on the tasks. They learn to multitask and improve their analytical skills. All of this is possible thanks to cognitive skills.

As a teacher or a parent, you may notice that a child is slow in learning a skill or gets distracted easily. Some children may have difficulty learning basic skills in reading or writing, solving math, or language. Some children learn basic skills though they find it tough to apply skills in problem-solving.

Do not ignore the initial signs your child may show of a learning disability. Speak to the teacher if you are a parent. If you are a teacher, consult with the parent to understand the child’s difficulty.

Reaching the Destination 

As the child matures, it enters the world of competition. Achieving desired results in a test in school or getting a promotion in the office. Cognitive abilities are indispensable competencies needed to meet the challenges of job demands, education, societal expectations, and the demands of everyday life.

Your child’s cognitive skills will help at every possible milestone it plans to achieve. Listening to instructions, and lectures with focus, concentrating on the task at hand, sometimes even multitasking, and trying to gain balance. Your child’s ability to solve problems and get solutions. Using logical thinking and reasoning while handling different tasks and people will make it stand out from the crowd.

Stepping Stones

Now that we know how important it is to develop cognitive skills in children, the question is how can we, as teachers and parents, help our children build and develop these cognitive abilities.

Here are ten ways to help develop cognitive skills in children.

• Ask open-ended questions

Asking open-ended questions enhances cognitive skills like comprehension, making inferences, and vocabulary. For example, if you are dining, ask them what they liked in that dish. Ask why they adore a particular TV show.

• Play games

Let your child play games that need physical and mental effort. Play with your child whenever possible so that you get a chance to notice them. Build positive habits of reading and solving Crossword puzzles

• Exposure to arts

Music, arts and dance stimulate the senses. Help them learn and develop at least one art form. Any form of art helps them relax their minds and appreciate art.

• Encourage sports

Let your child participate in sports activities. Sports can reduce stress and help the child in its overall development. Sports also help in improving decision-making and being active. Sports encourage teamwork and leadership qualities in children.

• Control screen time

Have rules to control the screen time. It can lead to attention problems, difficulty with social skills, and poor academic performance. Limiting screen time and encouraging other activities which promote cognitive development is essential.

• Discussions

Include your child in relevant discussions. Ask their views on important topics. Make them explain their point of view and encourage speaking. Most parents do not include their children in decision-making. Try to avoid this and let them speak up.

• Assign tasks

Assign major tasks to children by giving instructions. Let them remember and follow instructions. Let them find their way to completing the assigned task. Examples include babysitting siblings, caring for pets, and helping in the kitchen.

• Reading

Read aloud stories to your child at an early age. This practice develops a reading habit which is an excellent hobby and useful in vocabulary building. Reading also leads to creativity in children.

• Socializing

Let your children socialize with other children and people. Let them answer phone calls and take messages. Help them make penpals and encourage keeping in touch with them.

• Good sleep

Encourage good sleeping habits. Proper sleep keeps the mind fresh and active for the next day.

Conclusion

There is a quote by Haim Ginott - “Children are like wet cement: whatever falls on them makes an impression.”

Cognitive skills are crucial for the growth of your child. Developing these skills makes them excellent adults and better human beings. These skills will decide if your child will be part of the crowd or stand out from the crowd.

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