Cognitive development concerns our ability to think, reason, understand, and learn and includes memory and recall. Perceptual and sensory skills are part of our cognitive development. The development of the five senses, sight, hearing, taste, touch, and smell contributes to our cognitive development and is linked to physical development such as the development of binocular vision and fine motor skills. Cognitive development also includes understanding concepts such as time, size, shape, and color.
Birth to 18 months
Children will start to recognize familiar faces and objects. familiar routines, fear of strangers, concept of object permanence, puts all objects into mouth to explore their properties, learns simple games such as peek-a-boo, enjoys looking at books.The focus of all these developments is through play.
18 – 24 months
They will point to objects named by adults obey simple requests, wants to explore and investigate everything in reach, joins in nursery rhymes, and solves simple puzzles.
At this age a child learns a lot through visual and auditory play such as watching videos, looking at picture books, listening to rhymes, stories. Being able to retell the rhyme or a story leads to language development.
2 – 3 years
Remembers rhymes and songs, matches colors, sorts objects into simple categories, and solves more complex puzzles.
3 – 5 years
At this age they will remember past events, names 2-3 or more colors, understands the concept of numbers up to three, counts with increased understanding, concentrates on activities and completes them, names different shapes, shows interest in reading and writing.
5 – 8 years
They will begin to develop concepts of quantity, develops literacy skills, begins to understand basic scientific principles, learns to tell the time, plays board games with understanding and skill, and attention span increases.
