Ways to Promote Cognitive Development in Toddlers

1. Ways to Promote Cognitive Development in Toddlers

2. What are cognitive skills? When parents think about cognitive development activities, they usually mean learning academic skills and building a knowledge base. This understanding limits them to know about colours, recognizing shapes, learning the alphabet and the “3Rs” – reading, writing and arithmetic. This is why most of us are often surprised to find out that there is a clear distinction between what is meant by cognitive and academic skills. Actually, this difference is really huge.

3. Cognitive development in early childhood helps solve a persistent learning challenge by strengthening the child’s basic processing or cognitive skill set. When these individual mental skills are weak, academic learning turns into a stressful, anxiety-inducing struggle. When cognitive skills are strong, academic learning becomes a breeze — fast, easy, efficient, and enjoyable! Cognitive development in early childhood may seem mysterious because it is not easy to see or recognize, but without them, a child will not be able to process the information she receives from sources around her through her sense of sound, touch, sight, taste, and smell.

4. Learn to foster cognitive development early As a parent, it is important to focus on nurturing your child’s cognitive development as soon as she is born, because doing so lays the foundation for your child’s success later in life. Research shows that children who are able to distinguish sounds at an early age are better at acquiring the skills for learning to read by the time they are three and four years of age. These crucial skills enable children to process sensory information and eventually lead to learning to evaluate, analyze, remember, make comparisons and understand cause and effect. Strong cognitive skills are critically important to success in life!

5. Work on increasing attention spans When your child learns to pay attention, it enables her to concentrate on one task or conversation for an extended period of time. Learning to pay attention is an important cognitive skill that your child will use effortlessly when it comes to all her future learning. Parents can help a child develop her ability to focus by pointing out things that seem important or interesting and then asking the child to comment on her observations. For instance, when visiting the zoo, ask pointed questions such as, ”which animal is your favourite?” or ”Why did you like that specific animal?” Questions like these help the child pay closer attention to what she is exposed to and also challenge her ability to choose specific words to describe her thoughts.

6. Helping build a strong memory Memory is an important cognitive skill that equips a child to retain what she has learned and experienced and therefore helps build a future base of knowledge. Children who are less than five years old find it difficult to retain in their memory what they may have learned. But, as a child grows up and progresses into the school years, her long-term memory increases and allows the child to progressively build on the previous knowledge.

7. Teaching to think clearly & differently Thinking clearly enables a child to find the right reasons to sort tasks and find the right solutions easily and quickly. This cognitive skill helps a child to know whether she’s accomplishing what she set out to do or whether she needs to ask for help. Research has clearly shown that interaction with peers, parents, and other caregivers over the first five years is far more educational and vital for cognitive development.

8. Activities to help cognitive development in toddlers Throughout the history of mankind, babies were thought of as passive beings. They were often seen simply as miniature versions of adults. It wasn’t until psychologists and modern thinkers proposed that children actually think differently than adults do. This is what made parents view early childhood as a unique period of growth and development. While the brain can be influenced at any age, it is most impressionable in the first five years of an infant’s life. You will be surprised at how easy it really is to help boost your baby’s natural cognitive skills. Incorporating simple yet effective cognitive development games into your daily routine can help your child in the areas of memory, focus, and concentration, and enhance the power of their senses.

9. Conclusion To find out more about how My Gym supports “whole-child development” through cognitive development games, please visit any of our centres. Choose a day when you will be relatively free and come over with your child in tow. Your child could be an infant (as young as 6 months), a toddler, or a preschooler, age is not a bar for enrolling.

10. Our Branches: My Gym Buona Vista 35, Rochester Drive, Rochester Mall, #03-24/25/26 Singapore 138639 Phone: (+65) 6684 9220 My Gym Great World 1 Kim Seng Promenade #03-106 Great World City Singapore 237994 Phone: (+65) 6235 4070 My Gym Jurong East 3 Gateway Drive, Westgate, #04-39 Singapore 608532 Phone: (+65) 6465 9205 My Gym Punggol 681 Punggol Drive, Oasis Terrace, #03-02/03/04 Singapore 820681 Phone: (+65) 6787 1178 My Gym Tampines 300 Tampines Avenue 5, NTUC Income, #05-05, Singapore 529653 Phone: (+65) 6789 7061 My Gym Parkway Parade 80 Marine Parade Road, #15-03 Parkway Parade, Singapore 449269 Phone: (+65) 6440 9916

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