Cognitive Development Characteristics of Children by Age

Mental skills acquired in the first years of life are the most important steps in the development of intelligence in children. Cognitive development, which covers all mental processes, manifests itself at what age, what age a child’s mind “gets”, read on.

Let’s start with a short reminder: Every child is special and their development process is unique. However, experts can talk about a general skill or capacity according to their age. Your child’s cognitive level will largely match those listed below, but don’t expect them to be exactly the same.

1 year old cognitive development features

• For the first time, fully intelligent behavior is seen.
• Discovers new tools, attempts to eat by himself.
• Begins to make changes in repetitive movements.
• While handling some objects, it sorts the behaviors it has, changes it, and finds new ways by trying.
• It cannot directly capture the object on a mat, it sees the object shaking while catching the mat and pulls it.
• By trial and error, he can change his movement patterns, such as hitting, shaking, depending on the way he pulls an object to himself.
• He began to recognize and make sense of the outside world.

Cognitive skills in 18-month child development

• The first signs of thinking begin to appear.
• Disappearing objects now remain in your mind. He can keep the symbols of objects in his mind.
• After this month, it is no longer just by trial and error; acts with the consciousness of relationship, by controlling himself.
• He reaches for the toys by lifting the lid of a transparent box he has never seen before (not by trial and error, but by relationship awareness.).
• It makes use of pre-made motion patterns. For example, let’s say you put the chain in the box, leaving the box 3 mm apart. Suppose your child never saw the box open and closed. When the child turns the box upside down, he sees that the chain does not fall. At that moment, the following thing happens that shows the role of imitation in the birth of designs and the actions to be taken with a mental combination: The child opens and closes his mouth. Shows the opening of the box with his mouth. Then he manages to widen the cover by pulling on it and takes the chain. prof. Dr. Haluk Yavuzer calls this an “invention attempt”.

Cognitive characteristics of 2-year-olds

• From the ninth month, the child, who understands that the objects are permanent and continues to exist even if they are removed from his front, starts to represent the objects through the process, that is, to symbolize them, by the age of 2. This is the beginning of comprehension and language development.
• From now on, he starts to use words and understand the relationship between a symbol and the object it represents, albeit at a primitive level.
• After developing a symbol that represents the object or person that is not in front of him, he understands the relationship between the word and the object. Thus, he begins to explore the new world that opens before him.
• As children grow, they display certain age-specific thinking styles. For example, a 2-year-old can apologize when he slumps into a chair. This is called “animism”—the tendency to attribute vital properties to inanimate objects.
• He perceives the world from his “egocentric” point of view, unable to see anything from someone else’s point of view.

Features of cognitive development in preschool age 2-7 years

• Most of them algae in general, integrating unrelated objects and concepts without considering the details.
• A 5-year-old child cannot separate the part from the whole. He cannot make mental comparisons. Their perception is sudden.
• ‘How much?’ ‘How much?’ It is the absence of procedures that can answer a question such as says Yavuzer. “Even when the child is told we have 5 cubes and is taught how to count and say ‘five’, the child will not understand why he said ‘five’.” According to Piaget, the child learns a simple process just by making sounds here, and does not learn a concept about numbers. In other words, according to Piaget, mental actions, operations and thinking processes are not through speech; develops from action.
• Preschoolers are egocentric. So the logic is not yet developed. He sees every event from his own point of view, the feeling of sharing cannot be mentioned yet. It cannot group the surrounding objects (such as own-belonging to others). Social orientation takes its full form only at the age of 7-8 years.
• It is under the influence of the image of objects. “It does not have the principle of conservation (immutability). In other words, it is under the influence of the shape of an object or its placement in different ways, and cannot realize that it is the same object.
• When we look at the development of children aged 2-7, we see that they cannot understand the conservation of concepts such as number, quantity and weight. For example, if you fill two equally sized glasses with water in front of your child, after showing their equality, you pour the water in one of the glasses into another thin, tall glass and ask your child which one has more water, he will show the tall, thin glass.
• Again, preschool children cannot group. In other words, they are a group of flowers and they cannot comprehend that the rose is part of this group.