Building Blocks for Success
When raising a child, many parents tend to focus on developing their children’s social and emotional skills—sometimes to the detriment of other skills. After all, the ability to interact well with others and express emotions in a healthy way is important in life. However, cognitive skills—a child’s ability to process information, solve problems, and perform tasks—are equally important. These skills enable children to understand the world and their roles in it.
In this article, we will discuss what cognitive skills look like in children, why they are important, and how they can be taught to children. We will also provide detailed examples of all the different areas of children’s lives to emphasize how important they are to children’s overall development and success.
What Are Cognitive Skills in Children?
Cognitive skills are the mental skills used to acquire information, process information, and solve problems. These skills help children understand and interpret the world around them. That way, they can work together more effectively and be accountable in their areas.
Notably, cognitive skills build on the core functions of the mind. These functions include memory, attention, executive functions, language processing, and visual and spatial processing. Cognitive skills such as critical thinking and problem solving are developed through these activities, which allow children to receive information from the environment, understand it, and act on it. For example, reading comprehension is a cognitive ability that builds on and uses cognitive functions such as attention, memory, and language processing to make sense of a text.
According to Jean Piaget’s theory of cognitive development, children’s mental abilities develop over time. For example, the cognitive abilities of a 13-year-old child are more advanced than those of an infant or toddler. While a teenager can think abstractly and use flexible thinking, a toddler will struggle with logical thinking and abstract concepts.
Why Are They Important for Children?
Here are four illustrations of the important role cognitive skills play in children’s lives.
Cognitive Skills Provide the Foundation for Lifelong Learning
A child’s current cognitive abilities are often strong indicators of his or her ability to expand on those abilities to achieve future learning outcomes. For example, research shows that infants who are better at segmenting speech at six months are better at complex language skills at two or three years of age. They are also better at acquiring reading skills at four or five years of age.
Cognitive Skills Support School Readiness and Academic Achievement
Children with adequate cognitive skills are able to focus, maintain attention, retain information, and share the ideas of others. These are important skills for those preparing to enter school, where concentration, comprehension, and cognitive engagement are central to student success. The study also found that mental ability can have a very positive effect on academic success, with higher information processing, logical thinking, and other mental abilities having a positive effect on factors such as student retention and knowledge ability.
Cognitive Skills That Shape Future Success in Life
A child’s ability to solve problems, think, and make decisions are important life skills, which influence the way they will move over time in work, relationships, and other aspects of adulthood. Research has even found that a child’s cognitive ability is a significant predictor of adult financial well-being, further highlighting the relationship between cognitive abilities and future success.
Cognitive Skills Prepare Students for a Competitive World
Cognitive skills are required to navigate a world of increasing digitization, globalization, and automation and workforce. According to the World Economic Forum for 2023 The Future of Jobs ReportAnalytical thinking and creativity—both cognitive skills—are ranked as the top two skills that organizations consider core competencies for employees. If future generations are to respond effectively to an ever-changing world and workplace, then parents must develop their child’s cognitive skills continuously in anticipation of major change.
What Are Examples of Cognitive Skills?
Cognitive skills include critical thinking, logical reasoning, reading comprehension, reasoning skills, problem solving, and more. Here, we describe these skills and show what they look like in various aspects of childhood.
Critical thinking
Critical thinking is the ability to analyze information and make decisions about it. It is an important skill for children because it enables them to think independently, make connections between different ideas, and understand how their knowledge applies in the real world. Here’s how this skill can be seen in different areas of children’s lives:
- Home
Realizing that they will have more time to play unless they finish their chores early, considering the consequences of playing video games instead of finishing their homework, thinking about healthy eating when packing their lunches. - School
Considering different perspectives in class discussion, identifying connections between course content and real life, and supporting essay arguments with evidence. - For the community
Examining friendships by considering how that relationship makes them feel, understanding why something is wrong, and thinking about the consequences of their actions.
Logical Reasoning
Logical reasoning is the process of drawing conclusions from information. With logical thinking skills, children can think through situations, anticipate consequences, and make informed decisions. This cognitive ability is manifested in children in the following ways:
- Home
Deciding to wear a rain jacket when it’s raining outside, indicating that one of their family members is out when the car is off the road, and understanding that a plate of food is hot when they see steam rising from it. - School
Predicting what’s next in the story based on the character’s actions, using the process of elimination to answer multiple-choice questions, and making a hypothesis based on what they’ve seen. - For the community
Thinking that their friend is upset because they are frowning, making a strategy based on previous results to win the game, and understanding that something funny must have happened when they see a group of friends laughing.
Reading Comprehension
Reading comprehension is the ability to read, process, and understand text. Without this ability, children will not be able to find meaning in what they have learned, hindering their ability to follow written instructions, answer text-based questions, and take appropriate action. Examples of reading comprehension in children include:
- Home
Understanding what a word means based on context clues, following a recipe while baking with a parent, and understanding written notes left by family members. - School
Correctly answering questions about assigned readings, writing book reports, and discussing the meaning of a poem in class. - For the community
Summarizing a letter to an acquaintance, reading and understanding the rules of a board game, and understanding a message sent by a friend.
Estimating Skills
Quantitative skills are the ability to use numbers to think and make predictions. These skills allow children to analyze and interpret numerical information, which is important for completing daily tasks and doing well in school and at work. Children’s math skills in different areas include:
- Home
Measuring cooking ingredients, tracking how they spend their money, and counting time spent on household chores. - School
Solving math problems, being able to count, and reading and interpreting graphs. - For the community
Keeping score during matches, properly dividing resources between friends, and measuring and comparing distance between races.
Problem solving
Problem solving is the process of identifying a problem, putting together solutions, and taking appropriate action. Children who are good at solving problems persevere instead of giving up, think creatively, and adapt to different situations—qualities needed to navigate life’s challenges with ease. Here are a few ways that problem-solving skills are evident in children:
- Home
Stack the blocks without them falling, use the ladder to reach the unreachable object, and track their steps until they find the lost object. - School
Asking a teacher for help when struggling with an idea, explaining a challenging word problem, and borrowing a pencil when theirs runs out of lead. - For the community
Replacing a missing board game piece with something else to keep playing, resolving a conflict with a friend who wants to play a different game by suggesting they take turns, and getting help from an adult when they accidentally break a friend’s toy.
What Kinds of Activities Improve Cognitive Skills?
Parents can develop children’s critical thinking, logical thinking, and other cognitive skills to promote intelligence, adaptability, and resilience. Below are examples of how they can do that.
- Playing puzzles
According to research, puzzle games help children develop spatial thinking and problem-solving skills, allowing children to visualize problems, see relationships between objects, and navigate their physical environment. - Reading
Research has shown that parent-child reading promotes children’s language development. It also improves their vocabulary, spelling, and reading comprehension, laying the foundation for strong communication skills. - Exploring the environment
Research has found that natural play has a positive effect on children’s cognitive play behavior. In addition, outdoor exploration helps their visual and auditory processing skills and encourages critical thinking. - Asking and answering questions
Asking your child questions encourages him to think critically and intelligently. It also allows them to practice their communication skills. In the meantime, answering your child’s questions helps them learn and consider different points of view. - It filters
Allow your child to sort things based on color, type of object, and other features. This will help them sharpen their cognitive, reasoning, and memory skills, which they will need in daily activities, school, and work. - Repeating the alphabet
Because children’s knowledge of alphabets and sounds is a major predictor of future reading and spelling skills, regular practice with your child is essential to their development. The activity also sharpens their memory and improves their writing and speaking skills. - Participating in activities that focus on your child’s interests
For example, if your child likes wizards, make him watch children’s videos with wizard characters. That way, if you ask them questions based on the videos, they will be more engaged and will be able to answer them correctly.
Building on Cognitive Skills
Cognitive skills play an important role in children’s development. Critical thinking, reading comprehension, reasoning skills, problem solving, and other skills help children understand, interpret, and respond to their environment. They also lay the foundation for lifelong learning, prepare students for future success, and enable them to navigate a competitive world.
Parents can improve their children’s cognitive abilities by reading with them, exposing them to nature, and other activities. However, they should not stop there. In addition to developing cognitive skills, parents should also develop children’s social and emotional skills. This will ensure that children grow up to be complete individuals who can thrive at home, at school, at work, and in other areas of life.
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