About Cognitive Development in Infancy & Early Childhood
Cognitive development refers to learning skills children use to make sense of their world. From birth, infants learn through their visual, hearing, touch, taste and smell discrimination skills. The learning skills of toddlers progress through the development of memory, attention span and language. At preschool age, children develop concentration, reasoning, symbolic thought and concepts such as numbers and letters. Child psychologist, Dr. Richard C. Woolfson describes the two distinct "learning styles" shown in children's cognitive development: "impulsive" (when children act before they think), and "reflective" (when children think before they take action).
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Infants
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From birth, infants use sense discriminatory skills and certain reflexes such as sucking and grasping to build a secure attachment with parents and caregivers. This bond provides the foundation for cognitive development. According to Paul C. Holinger, M.D., M.P.H., "Studies show that babies prefer to look at human faces more than anything else." Infants quickly learn to recognise the face and voice of their primary caregiver, often the mother, strengthening the bond. Between birth and approximately 15 months of age, the gradual progression of infants' responses, such as eye contact, smiling and vocal sounds, expresses this bond and the development of children's cognitive skills.
Toddlers
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Whereas the attention span of infants is short and random, toddlers concentrate on something for as long as they need to to gain meaning from it. Between the ages of approximately 16 and 36 months, improvements in memory mean that toddlers remember both recent and more distant experiences. Learning skills at this stage are also connected with the development of children's receptive language (listening and understanding skills), and expressive language (speaking skills). Language development enables toddlers to ask questions, improving their reasoning skills.
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Preschool Children
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Between the ages of 3 and 5 years, children's cognitive development displays an ability to concentrate on tasks by ignoring minor distractions. At this stage, the development of symbolic thought enables children to use imagery as part of their thinking and reasoning. Children use symbolic thought in their creative play, whereby they substitute items to represent the "real thing," for example, when they use a box as a pretend car. The development of symbolic thought is an important precursor to the understanding of concepts such as numbers and letters.
Expert Insight
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Three important theorists of children's cognitive development are Jean Piaget, Lev Vygotsky and Jerome Bruner. Piaget put forward the idea that children's cognitive skills progress through a series of stages, and emphasized children's relationships with their peers. Whereas Piaget saw cognitive development as an internal process of stages, Vygotsky stressed the importance of external experiences with more skilled learning partners, such as parents and caregivers. One of Bruner's key insights was that children's cognitive development thrives when they make choices for their own learning, using their own interests as a guide.
Developmental delay
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Although each child is unique, children's cognitive development usually progresses through a series of cognitive developmental milestones. Doctors trained in pediatrics will recognize a child who is not making adequate progress through the milestones. Some possible causes of delay are genetic, such as Down Syndrome, or physical, such as hearing impairment, which cause delays in a child's speech development.
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