Cognition and learning are essential to your child’s development and growth.
- Cognition refers to the mental processes involved in acquiring, processing, and using information and includes attention, memory, language, problem-solving and decision-making.
- Learning is the process of acquiring new knowledge, skills, or behaviours through experience, study, or instruction.
Play is essential for young children’s brain development and learning. It helps them explore the world, understand how things work, and develop social and cognitive skills. Reading with and to your child is an effective way to promote cognitive development.
Some children may have differences in terms with how they interact with their parents, carers, friends and wider family. They may be less likely to 'play with' someone, and more likely to 'play alongside'. Whilst they will still be learning through individual play, there are elements, such as language skills and social skills that can be better supported through interactions with others.
Including your child in clubs with peers where they can experience a range of activities and people is useful. Spending time with you, where you can model behaviour and understanding for them is also important. Explaining, wondering, guessing and looking things up together can all help with their learning journey.
Building attention skills in children is core to learning. Please see the section on attention and impulse control for more strategies.
To make the most of the learning activity:
- Make sure the environment is right for them before you start.
- Pick something they enjoy.
- Make sure you have their attention (using their name or a touch) before giving them any information.
- Be aware of other factors that may interrupt the activity. Feeling tired, hungry or unsafe will make it difficult to concentrate and learn.
- If you enjoy a subject or activity share this with your child. Your passion will make it exciting and will also make the learning journey easier for you to sustain.
Useful resources:
- BBC Bitesize has lots of resources to support studying.
- Every cognitive skill explained in a short video.