Cognitive Development In Children

What began as involuntary movement and reflexes at birth, by 6 months have become voluntary movements. By 2 years the fine motor skills are beginning to develop. Gross motor skills involve the large muscles of the body that enable such functions as crawling, kicking, sitting upright and rolling over. It is a little harder for an infant to walk because they are top heavy and their thighs are too big to support their little feet. Most infants, starting at nine months begins to learn how to walk. Fine motor skills are necessary to engage in smaller, more precise movements, normally using the hands and fingers. Fine motor skills are different than gross motor skills which require less precision to perform. This is the child's ability to use small muscles, specifically their hands and fingers, to pick up small objects, hold a spoon, turn pages in a book, or use a crayon to draw.

Our children go through a series of changes during their development growth and at every stage of their young lives important milestones are achieved. Some activities as simple and trivial as they may seem to us plays a vital role that are primarily focused on the development of fine and gross motor skills. Even when these activities can be identified by specific age groups it is important to remember that “individual differences in maturation rates, temperaments and adult and social influences mean that age is not a definitive indicator of where a particular child is along the development continuum” (Ozretich, 2001). Parents are usually aware of gross motor skills are because it is a milestone in their child’s life as he or she develops. There are significant differences between fine and gross motor skills. Motor skills are the motions that work in conjunction with the nervous system, the brain and the muscles working together. Hence, fine motor skills are the movements made such as picking up a ball using the smaller muscles like fingers, wrist etc. Gross motor skills are the larger movements like walking and sitting that uses larger muscles in the legs.

For example, I witnessed a young girl who was dancing poetically around the room, jumping (even on one leg at a time), and skipping. This girl demonstrated pronounced gross motor skills because she had great control of the large muscles in her body. After walking over to a table, pulling out a chair, and sitting down, the girl proceeded to demonstrate fine motor skills. This girl carefully inspected the snack table and concluded that she wanted some wheat thins. She held onto her plate with one hand, and with the other clutched small tongs to collect her crackers. She returned to her seat and grasped one cracker between her thumb and fingers and brought it to her mouth, demonstrating the pincer grasp (Decker, 2016c). Unlike gross motor skills, fine motor skills are concentrated on small muscle movements. The CDC provided an environment conducive for physical development, whether it be gross motor skills or fine motor skills. The CDC had a slide with steps, coloring utensils, free space, a station for students to play with pipe cleaners, an outdoor area, building blocks, and many more objects to aid the children’s physical

In my opinion, the most important cognitive advancement during the middle childhood years is inductive and deductive reasoning. In the text it stated that inductive is the “starting with observation about particular members of a class of people, animals, objects, or events, they draw general conclusions about the class in whole”. (Piaget, pg. 294) An example that the text said is when the child sees a dog bark and repeatedly see’s other dogs barking, they start to figure out that all dogs bark. With deductive reasoning, they stated it different with the same concept, all dogs bark so that means the dog “toby” must bark. As a mother, I worry a lot about my child getting hurt. With this cognitive advance, I believe she will stay away from harm.

Being efficient in this skill greatly impacts the outcome of tasks. Increases the rate at which the task gets completed. Completely such tasks often requires multiple small muscles working together (http://www.childdevelopment.com.au/areas-of-concern/fine-motor-skills). Fine motor skills are necessary for performing everyday tasks. Without these abilities a child’s self esteem, and academics, will suffer. Also, without these skills, a child is unable to develop independence in life (http://www.childdevelopment.com.au/areas-of-concern/fine-motor-skills). One thing parents should remember about small motor development in their young child is that it is different at different ages. It’s good for a child to explore the world around them. IT gives them the opportunity to the develop those small muscles. Some activities that a child could do that involve the small muscles include: drawing, throwing, picking up blocks, and grasping

This paper is going to carry out a literature review on cognitive development in infants. The paper will review cognitive development in infants at different stages. Effects of early experience on mental development in infants will also be discussed. The research question and the hypothesis of the research will also be given.

Children acquire most of their motor skills from school, which is where they spend most of their time growing up. School settings can enhance motor development in children through play using toys available to them, however, some school environments can also inhibit motor performance. Children have the opportunity to improve and learn new skills from manipulating different objects as well as can practice intertrial variability from playing with others. In order to better understand the concept of motor development in children, a naturalistic observation can be performed. Depending on the environment, certain motor skills can be refined, while others can be repressed. Haywood and Getchell (2014) suggest

As we grow older we are challenged not only by our physical limitations, but also by our cognitive ones. Many older adults are handicapped by mental constraints while the majority are also experiencing a decline in cognitive capacity. It is estimated that 24 million people are suffering from dementia (Ballard et al., 2011). Because this number is so large growing older is often associated with memory loss along with other mental deficits. This is not always the case though and it is not just older adults’ cognitive function declining with age. To help me understand cognitive aging more fully I spoke with Jane, this is a pseudonym.

There are many physical advantages to gross motor skill development that play a role both in childhood and throughout the rest of that individual’s lifetime. Motor skills that are developed in infancy are essential steps to continue to build motor skills throughout childhood (Burns et al., 2017). In order to have the best physical potential to be able to carry out daily activities, gross motor skills are where this all begins. To have optimal function, an individual must learn how to control their movements with poise and rhythm.

This essay will discuss the cognitive and emotional development of children going on further to explore the ongoing debate of nature versus nurture within these. Both can play a vital and important role in influencing a childs development. The term nature refers to an individuals biology, the genetically programmed process of physical maturation (Neaum, 2010). The term nurture refers to all the experiences that each individual child has after they are born that can then influence who they are and what it is that they know (Neaum, 2010).

A child also starts using gross and fine motor skills in sporting activities. Fine motor skills include using the small muscles that are found in the hands, arms, and fingers to use and control tools and materials. Gross motor skills involve controlling the head, trunk, legs, and arms. An early childhood professional

There are many different things that shape the cognitive development of children. To begin with cognitive development is when a child develops how to process, solve problems, and start making decisions. Once they have learned this they take everything they have learned into their adolescence. An example, of what can shape the cognitive development of a child can be an educational game. Educational games can be very useful in shaping a child’s development because they are having fun while learning at the same time and what kid doesn’t like to play games, the fact that it is even educational makes it even better for them. Not only are they having fun but there are many different games that help in different categories of development in

The subjects were children from 1990 to 1995 between the ages of three to 11.

Play can be defined as activity that is intrinsically motivated, implies flexibility, positive affect, and pretence. Play also implies free choice and active engagement (physical and psychological involvement rather than passive observation). Generally, main types of play are recognized as: object play, pretend play and sociodramatic play, physical activity play (exercise play, rough-and-tumble play), and games with rules (Smith, 2010). These types of play overlap and are not easily separated. Play specialists, parents, governmental institutions generally believe that each of these types of play support different aspects of children’s development and their effect is crucial to children’s health. However, psychological research lacks experimental and correlational evidence to support this stance. Here some types of play are examined in relation to development from three points of view: one, play is essential to children’s cognitive development; second, play is one of many routes to positive development (equifinality); and third, play is a byproduct (epiphenomenon) of other factors that lead to development (Lillard et al, 2012).

A few examples of Fine Motor activities displayed during the early years include handwriting skills, drawing pictures, making objects out of clay, and even cutting with scissors. Each of these activities is characterized by including the small-muscle developments that involve finger-thumb coordination, hand-eye coordination, and the development of muscle strength in the hand and arm. All in all, motor skills are an important part of the learning process, and as these “fundamental motor skills are learned...[they] serve as the foundation for more specialized motor skills that will be