Cognitive skills

Children should be able to improve their ability to focus, to remember information and think more critically as they age. Cognitive skills allow children to understand the relationships between ideas, to grasp the process of cause and effect and to improve their analytical skills. All in all, cognitive skill development not only can benefit your child in the classroom but outside of class as well. Understanding the relationship between cause and effect can prevent children from giving in to peer pressure and making poor choices. It can also help them realize that if they play video games instead of doing their homework, they will likely do poorly on the quiz they have in math class the next day. Children can be taught to focus on completing a task by removing distractions such as toys, TV or talking while trying to finish their homework. Parents, teachers, and caregivers can help children develop cognitive skills by asking them questions about a story they read, a field trip they made or a project they completed. By questioning children about their experiences, adults motivate children to think, reflect and engage in critical thinking. They may decide to evaluate your child for learning disabilities if they agree with you that your child's cognitive development appears to be delayed. If your child does have a learning disability, it's important to seek help for him as soon as possible before the disability or disorder has the opportunity to stymie his academic advancement ...

Practicing a new and challenging activity is a good bet for building and maintaining cognitive skills. Your brain has the ability to learn and grow as you age — a process called brain plasticity — but for it to do so, you have to train it on a regular basis. "Eventually, your cognitive skills will wane and thinking and memory will be more challenging, so you need to build up your reserve," says Dr. John N. Morris, director of social and health policy research at the Harvard-affiliated Institute for Aging Research. "Embracing a new activity that also forces you to think and learn and requires ongoing practice can be one of the best ways to keep the brain healthy." Physical and mental game Research has shown that regular physical exercise is one way to improve cognitive functions like memory recall, problem solving, concentration, and attention to detail. However, it is not clear if the physical aspect alone boosts your brain or if a combination of other factors — like the mental challenge of the activity, the frequency you do it, and the desire to improve — also contribute. Take swimming, for example. It has obvious cardiovascular and muscle-building benefits, but also involves constant thinking, processing, and learning. You have to be mindful of your breathing rhythm and how to properly execute strokes and kicks. You also can measure your expertise in terms of endurance and speed, which motivates you to practice your skills to be a better swimmer. A brain training activit...

• Demonstrate anticipatory behaviors, like rooting and sucking at the site of a nipple or bottle • Detect sound differences in pitch and volume • Discern objects more clearly within a distance of 13 inches • Focus on moving objects, including the faces of caregivers • See all colors of the human visual spectrum • Tell between tastes, from sweet, salty, bitter, and sour • Use facial expressions to respond to their environment From 6 to 9 Months Looking inside the mind of an infant is no easy task. After all, researchers cannot just ask a baby what he or she is thinking at any given moment. To learn more about the mental processes of infants, researchers have come up with many creative tasks that reveal the inner workings of the baby's brain. • Identify their own reflection in the mirror by name • Imitate more complex adult actions (playing house, pretending to do laundry, etc.) • Match objects with their uses • Name objects in a picture book • Respond to simple directions from parents and caregivers • Sort objects by category (i.e., animals, flowers, trees, etc.) • Stack rings on a peg from largest to smallest • Ask "why" questions to gain information • Demonstrate awareness of the past and present • Learn by observing and listening to instructions • Maintain a longer attention span of around 5 to 15 minutes • Organize objects by size and shape • Seek answers to questions • Understand how to group and match objects according to color • Cultivate learning experiences at home...

The term executive functions refers to the higher-level cognitive skills you use to control and coordinate your other cognitive abilities and behaviors. The term is a business metaphor, suggesting that your executive functions are akin to the chief executive that monitors all of the different departments so that the company can move forward as efficiently and effectively as possible. How we organize our lives, how we plan and how we then execute those plans is largely guided by our executive system. Executive functions can be divided into organizational and regulatory abilities. Organization includes gathering information and structuring it for evaluation. Regulation involves evaluating the available information and modulating your responses to the environment. Seeing a wonderful dessert in front of you may be tempting to devour, but your executive system might remind you that eating it would conflict with your inner goals, such as losing weight. • Organization – attention, planning, sequencing, problem-solving, working memory, cognitive flexibility, abstract thinking, rule acquisition, selecting relevant sensory information • Regulation – initiation of action, self-control, emotional regulation, monitoring internal and external stimuli, initiating and inhibiting context-specific behavior, moral reasoning, decision-making Anatomy of Executive Functions Executive deficits have been associated with damage to the most forward areas of the frontal lobes (located just above you...

How Can you improve your Cognitive Skills Cognitive skills are the fundamental skills the brain uses to think, remember, learn, read, pay attention and reason. These skills play an essential role in carrying out any task from the simplest to the most complicated. Cognitive skills also help you solve problems in the workplace and improve your work quality with your potential. Why are they so important? Cognitive skills are required in an interview and on a resume which makes you an appropriate candidate. You can develop the skills throughout your life, but improving them can make you better with your organization’s abilities. Cognitive skills help the brain to reason, remember, solve problems, read, think, hold attention, and understand. They allow you to register the new information by taking that information and distributing it to your brain’s various areas. When you require that information, it also helps your brain to recognize and retrieve that information. It helps you do your day-to-day tasks quickly with ease and efficiency. Remembering team goals, pay attention during an important meeting, and interpret data to require good cognitive skills in the workplace. Types of Cognitive skills Cognitive skills can be divided into nine broad categories. These are ideologies through which your brain focuses and effectively and interprets information. Sustained attention Sustained attention increases your attention span, helping you focus on a single task for an increased amoun...