Growing up, my mom worked extremely hard in order to financially provide for my small family. Now that I’m an adult, I appreciate the long hours she worked at the factory so that she could afford to buy food and clothes for my sister and me. Unfortunately, due to my mom’s work schedule, my sister and I were forced to stay at relatives’ homes after school each day. Because we stayed at so many different people’s homes, our bus driver always got confused about the location he needed to drop us off at. On this blog, I hope you will discover the benefits of leaving your kids at a safe daycare facility each day. Enjoy!
What is cognitive development, and how can child care centers help preschoolers build these skills? Social, emotional, and physical development are areas parents often understand well, but the cognitive domain may seem more mysterious. If you've heard of this term and want to learn more, take a look at what parents need to know about daycare and their child's cognitive development.
What Does Cognitive Development Mean?
Cognitive development is one domain or type of learning/skill-building. The other domains include social, emotional, and language development. Even though each domain has its own hallmarks, these types of development all tie together. Any developmental domain may depend on the others.
Cognition refers to the mental processes a child (or an adult) uses to learn, comprehend information, problem-solve, remember, and think. As your child develops cognitive skills, you may notice a change in the way they think or express themselves. This could include an increased attention span (the ability to actively listen to you or a teacher for a longer time), higher-level reasoning skills, or an improved ability to express their thoughts and emotions verbally.
What Can You Expect from Your Preschooler's Cognitive Development?
While cognitive development includes several different aspects of thought or mental reasoning (such as memory, attention, crucial thinking, language use, and more), you shouldn't expect your preschooler to master each area immediately.
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), by age four, cognitive skill development may include the ability to name colors/numbers, understand how to count, understand time, remember some parts of a story, differentiate same and different, play a board or a card game, or draw some of the capital letters. Even though these are common cognitive milestones, not every preschooler will reach each one at the same time.
Why Do Some Children Reach Cognitive Milestones and Others Don't?
More specifically, why do some children leap ahead and others seem to fall behind? Development depends on several different factors. This means it's possible for a preschooler to reach a cognitive milestone at a slightly different time than the parent may expect. If you have concerns about your child's cognitive development, talk to their preschool teacher or the pediatrician. These professionals can help you to understand where your child is developmentally (in comparison to major milestones), what to expect, and what you should do next.
How Can Daycare Boost Cognitive Development?
The activities your child engages in during the pre-k day provide the opportunity to build cognitive abilities and practice these skills. Specific activities vary by center, but these may include story-time/reading, writing letters, using math manipulatives, playing games, or exploring the pretend play/dress-up area of the classroom.
Keep these tips in mind when looking for a child care center near you.
Share19 August 2021
