Cognitive Development: A Brief Overview

Cognitive development¹ involves the child’s ability to grow and develop their thinking or evaluation skills, and adapt to changes. It begins with the infant developing “object permanence object permanence  (see full Glossary) and realizing action and reaction, or “cause and effect”. During the preschool years, it may involve simple abilities, like recognizing colors, or complex abilities, like concentrating on a task. Other cognitive abilities include the following:

Developing cognitive skills takes time, and takes both experience and practice. Some more complex cognitive skills, like completing multiplication with decimals, are only possible if equally important “simpler” skills develop first, like counting and sequencing. The development of cognitive skills follows an order that is quite predictable for almost all children. Although most children follow the same order, each child acquires these skills at slightly different rates than other children. People working in the study of child development refer to these as individual differences (see full Glossary). They are related to every child’s unique physical and temperamental characteristics, and to the environment and culture where they grow and develop.

1 see References