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1. COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT OF
THE PRESCHOOLERS

2. “There are children playing in the street who could
solve some of my top problems in physics,
because they have modes of sensory perception
that I lost long ago’’
- J. Robert
Oppenhelmer

3. ABSTRACTION
PRESCHOOLER’S SYMBOLICAND INTUITIVE
THINKING
• There are two substages of piaget’s pre-
operational thought,
• SYMBOLICSTAGES
• INTUITIVESTAGES

4. • SYMBOLIC STAGES - preschool children show
progress in their cognitive abilities by being able
to draw objects that are not present, by their
dramatic increase in their language and make -
believe play.
 INTUITIVE SUBSTAGES - preschool begin to
use primitive reasoning and ask litany questions.
The development in their language ability
facilitates their endless asking questions.

5. PIAGET’S STAGES OF COGNITIVE
DEVELOPMENT STAGES
1. PREOPERATIONALSTAGES - The
preoperational stages covers from about
2- 7 years old, roughly corresponding to the
preschool years. Intelligence at this stage is
intuitive in nature.
DEVELOPMENTALTASKS
2. SYMBOLIC FUNCTION -This is the ability
to represent objects and events. A symbol is a
thing that represent something else.

6. 3. EGOCENTRISM -This isthe tendency of the
preschooler to only see his point of view and to
assume that everyone also has his point of view.
4. CENTRATION -This refers to the tendency of
the preschooler to only focus on one aspects. this
is also refers to as UNIDIMENSIONALTHOUGHT.
5. IRREVERSIBILITY- Preschool children still have
the inability to reverse their thinking.They can
understand that the juice in each glass can be
poured back into the juice box from which it came.

7. 6. ANIMISM -This is the tendency of the
preschooler to attribute human like traits or
characteristics to inanimate objects.
7.TRANSDUCTIVE REASONING - This refers to
the preoperational children type of reasoning that
is neither inductive nor deductive reasoning
appears to be from particular to particular.

8. BRAIN CONNECTIONS IN THE
PRESCHOOL YEARS
 Because of fascinating developments in
neuroscience, brain development of young have
been of great interest to the field of early
childhood. brain research findings point us to
more effective ways to care for and teach
preschooler from science lessons you had in high
school or even in elementary. remember that our
brain is composed of numerous cells called
NEURONS that connect to each other function.
Cell connections are what we call SYANPSES,
sometimes also referred to as SYNAPSTIC
CONNECTIONS.

9. DID YOU KNOW THAT?????
 The human brain contains some 50 billion
neurons at birth?
 By age of 2, children have developed half of
the brain cell connections that will be made
during one’s lifetime?
 Around 6 years of age the brain develops for
more sophisticated thinking patterns?

10.  All these are facts point to the numerous
potential that the preschooler’s brain has.The
child’s billion cells have the ability to make
almost countless connections that prepare the
child for intricate path-ways to learn language,
acquired logical-mathematics skills, interact
with people, grow in his feelings and emotions,
and even express himself in art. As such, a
preschool teacher would often observe how a
child now has transformed from a dependent
toddler into proud and independent preschooler
who can now eat more neatly, enjoy, “reading ‘’
a book.

11. LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT
 Young children’s understanding sometimes
get a head of their speech.As children go
through early childhood, their grasp of the
rules of language increases (morphology,
semantics, pragmatics and phonology)
 Symbolic thinking involves language, literacy,
and dramatic play.Children rapidly conclude
that sounds link together to make words and
words represent ideas, people, and things.

12. THE 4 MAIN AREAS OF LANGUAGE
1. PHONOLOGY - Study of speech and sounds.
2. SEMANTICS - Studyof word meaning and
word combination.
3. SYNTAX -The study of sentence
constructions.
4. PRAGMATICS -The study of conversation or
social uses of language.

13. FAST MAPPING
 As they advance in age and as they
continuously interact with people, preschool
children expand rapidly in their vocabulary
through FAST MAPPING, a process by which a
children absorb the meaning of a new word
after hearing it once or twice in conversation.
Preschool children combine syllables into words
and words into sentences in an increasingly
sophisticated manner.

14. VYGOTSKY’S SOCIO-CULTURAL
THEORY
LANGUAGEANDSOCIAL INTERACTION
 Vygotsky believed that young children use language
both to communicate socially and to plan, guide, and
monitor their behavior in a self-regulatory fashion-
called INNER SPEECH or PRIVATESPEECH.
 PRIVATESPEECH - Is a form of self talk that guides
the child’s thinking and action.
 For piaget, private speech is egocentrism and
immature, but vygotsky it is the important tool of
thought during early childhood.

15. ZONE OF PROXIMAL DEVELOPMENT
Vygotsky introduced the term (ZONE OF
PROXIMAL DEVELOPMENT (ZPD),to refer to tasks
too difficult for a child to master alone but can be
mastered with the guidance and assistance of
adults or more skilled children.
SCAFFOLDING - A term that refers to the
“changing support over a the course of teaching
session, with the more skilled person adjusting
guidance to fit the child’s current performance
level”.The more skilled person is also called MORE
KNOWLEDGEABLEOTHER (MKO).

16. INFORMATION PROCESSING
THEORY-ATTENTION AND MEMORY
 The information processing model is another
way of examining and understanding how
children develop cognitively.This model
conceptualizes children’s mental processes
through the metaphor of a computer
processing, encoding, storing, and decoding
of data.
• Short-Term memory (STM)
• Long-Term memory (LTM)

17.  Short-Term memory (STM) - retain
information for up to 15-30 seconds,
assuming there is no rehearsal, which can
help keep information in STM for a much
longer period.
 Long-Term memory (L
TM) - involves storing
information about the sequence of events
during familiar situations as “ scripts”.
Scripts help children to understand
interpret, and predict what will happen in
future scenarios.

18. THE YOUNG CHILDREN’S THEORY
OF MIND
• Theory of mind - refers to individuals thought
about how mental processes works.
• Cognitive terms such as know, remember,
and think usually appear after perceptual
and emotional terms, but are used by age 3.
• The ability to remember and solve problems
improve, children start to reflect on their
own thought processes. They begin to
construct a theory of mind or a set of ideas
about mental activities.
• It includes awareness of ones own thought
processes, social cognition, understanding
that people can hold false beliefs, ability to
deceive , ability to distinguish appearance
from reality and from fantasy.

19.  Various speculations and research
findings suggest that a social
experience is very important.Social
experience includes;
• Early forms of communication
• Imitation
• Make-believe play
• Language
• Social interaction

20. A QUICK LOOK AT WHAT A
PRESCHOOLERS CAN DO
 Below are the list of preschoolers
cognitive skills lifted from the Philippine
Early Learning and Development
Standards (PELDS)
 Receptive language
 Domain:Cognitive Development
 Memory: episodic memory

21. RECEPTIVE LANGUAGE
STANDARD 1:The child is able to understand
both verbal and non-verbal forms of
communication.
p
PRE-READING AND PRE-MATH
(MATCHING)
STANDARD 1.1:The child is able to match identical
objects, colors, shapes, symbols.

22. DOMAIN:COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENTS
ATTENTION AND ACTIVITY
STANDARDS 1.The child is able to
sustain attention and modulate his activity at
age-expected levels.
STANDARDS 1.2:Thechild isabletorecite the
alphabet and numbers insequence.
PRE-READING AND PRE-MATH
(COPYING LETTERS AND NUMBERS)

23. HIGHER-ORDERED MENTAL
ABILITIES(CONCEPT FORMATION)
STANDARDS 1:The child develops basic concepts
pertaining to object constancy, space, time,
quantity, seriation, etc. and uses these as the basis
for understanding how materials are categorized in
his/her environment. RDE
STANDARDS 1:The child is be able to understand
the cause-effect relationships.
HIGHER-ORDERED MENTAL ABILITIES
(CAUSE AND EFFECT RELATIONSHIPS)

24. MEMORY:(EPISODIC MEMORY)
STANDARDS 1.The child is able to recall people he
has met, events, and places he has been to.
MEMORY:(MEMORY FOR CONCEPT-
BASED KNOWLEDGE-SEMANTIC
MEMORY)
STANDARDS 1.The child is able to store verbal
information in short and long term memory.

25. HIGHER-ORDERED MENTAL
ABILITIES (LOGICAL REASONING)
STANDARDS 1: The child is able to follow the logic
of events (i.e., reasons why these happen) and draw
accurate conclusion by evaluating the facts
presented to him.
H
HIGHER-ORDERED MENTAL
ABILITIES (PLANNING AND
ORGANIZING)
STANDARDS 1:The child is able to plan and organize
a simple, familiar activity.

26. HIGHER-ORDERED MENTAL
ABILITIES (CREATIVE THOUGHT)
STANDARDS 1: The child is able to generate new
ideas or concepts, or new associations between
existing ideas or concepts.

27. HIGHER-ORDERED MENTAL
ABILITIES (COGNITIVE
FLEXIBILITY)
STANDARDS 1: The child is able to shift to more
adaptive cognitive processing strategies in order
to effectively deal with new and unexpected
conditions in his/her environment, including
problem situations.

28. THE ROLE OF CAREGIVERS
(PARENTS AND TEACHERS) IN THE
COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT OF
PRESCHOOLERS

29. FOR THREE YEAR-OLDS
1. Speak with children as often as possible.
2. Add new information to your children’s
sentences.
3. Teach children to memorize first and last
names.
4. Provide books for children to read, and read the
same books to them.
5. Encourage interest in reading.
6. Count objects of interest.
7. Explain why and how things happen.

30. 8. Provide sets - toys and other objects that
go together and discuss similarities and
differences.
9. Sing simple songs and make simple
rhythm instruments.

31. FOR FOUR YEAR-OLDS
1. Read aloud each day and encourage children to
look at books on their own.
2. Say nursery rhymes and fingerplays together.
Encourage 4 - year olds to tell stories to younger
children.
3. Encourage interest in writing and words.
4. Teach important number and space concepts.
5. Teach children the correct use of the telephone.
6. Encourage 4 - year olds to help you plan and
plant a garden.

32. FOR FIVE YEAR-OLDS
1. Add drama to your reading sessions each day by
using different voices for different characters.
2. Ask 5 year-olds to tell you a story.
3. Ask “ what if ’’ questions.
4. Involve children in writing “ thank-you ” notes.
5. Give 5 year-olds opportunities expose them to
games involving matching pairs.
6. Take questions seriously. Talk to children about
what happens and why.
7. 5 year-olds will show an increasing interest in
numbers.

33. 8. Encourage interest in jokes, nonsense,
and riddles by reading humorous stories,
riddles, and nonsense rhymes.
9. Give opportunities to express dramatic
and creative interest.