EMOTIONAL AND COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT

Prepared by : Daisy Jane Aniasco

• Children grow and change in many ways during their primary school years. As well as growing physically, children develop socially, emotionally and cognitively.

• Children’s responses to the different feelings they experience every day have a major impact on their choices, their behaviour, and on how well they cope and enjoy life.

• Emotional development involves learning what feelings and emotions are, understanding how and why they happen, recognizing one’s own feelings and those of others, and developing effective ways of managing them. As children grow and are exposed to different situations their emotional lives also become more complex. Developing skills for managing a range of emotions is therefore very important for their emotional wellbeing. Parents and carers have an important role to play in supporting children’s emotional development. They do this through responding effectively to children’s emotions, through providing examples of how they manage feelings, and through talking with children about feelings and how to manage them. In similar ways, school staff can provide important support for children’s emotional development.

EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Months 1 & 2

Infants• can differentiate between faces and other objects• respond to parents' smiles and voices• begin to develop a social smile

Month 3

• demonstrate increased social awareness• laugh out loud at the sight of a funny face

Month 4• Enjoys playing with other people and may cry when play stops• Recognize their primary caregiver

Month 5

• show displeasure when an object is taken away from them

Month 6• Can differentiate between family members (parents and siblings)

and strangers• Draw back from unfamiliar people

Month 7

• Begin to show obvious fear of strangers• They may cry when taken from their parents

Month 8

• Begin having stranger anxiety

Month 9 - 11

• Aware of changes in tone of voice• Show various moods such as happy, sad,

and angry• Self-esteem begins to develop• May be more sensitive to the presence of

other children• Tries to gain approval and avoid

disapproval

Month 12

• Have overcome their fear of strangers• Alert and responsive• Sometimes be cooperative, sometimes uncooperative• Start developing a sense of humor• Cling to one parent or both

Cognitive Development

•Cognitive development is the construction of thought processes, including remembering, problem solving, and decision-making, from childhood through adolescence to adulthood.•Beginning at birth the construction of thought processes, such as

memory, problem solving, exploration of objects etc, is an important part of an infant’s cognitive development. An infant needs to interact with their environment in order to learn about it. By using their senses, infants educate themselves about the world around them

Primary Circular Reaction• During this stage infants begin to organize their world through repeated

interactions in their environment. Even though an infant doesn't have words to describe concepts such as soft, small, hard or big, they are already beginning to understand these concepts by using their senses. An infant's memory is also central to cognitive development. They can only remember objects for only a few minutes. However, by the end of this stage their ability to remember objects extends to a week or two.

From 0 to 3 months• an infant mainly uses simple reflex activity• They tend to enjoy people and faces more than they do objects• Explores objects by grasping• Appear to be unaware of what actions they can cause

Secondary Circular Reaction

From here on, infants will enjoy a stimulating environment which will enable them to develop skills and concepts faster. Activities and toys will become a focal point as infants begin to engage and interact with purpose.

6 months of age• Can grasp the idea their actions can initiate pleasurable sensations• Still unaware of the permanence of objects by the end of this stage

Coordination of Secondary Schema

10 months of age • Discover object permanence• Ready for peek-a-boo

1 year of age• Are capable of reproducing interesting events and producing new

events