Following are the environmental factors that affect the child’s cognitive development.
Quality of adult-child interaction: This factor affects both home and school situations of a child. Therefore, the following interactions or conditions should be provided by the adults to help in the development of cognitive skills in children.
Encourage the child to ask questions and also answer their questions. At this stage children are full of curiosity and if they get discouraged by not receiving answers to their questions they may stop asking them. Hence, adults must ask questions and answer them too
Encourage children to think of solutions on their own instead of providing readymade answers and also letting them to take decisions.
Give reasons for everything so that children are exposed to logic and cause and effect relationships. For instance, instead of saying “come in, it is raining” it is more useful to say “come in, it is raining, if not, you will get wet and then catch cold”.
Provide children a variety of experiences in the environment, with opportunities for direct manipulation and interaction. This involves encouraging children to explore the environment, handle and manipulate objects, and have direct experiences as much as possible. At this stage of cognitive development the children learn through concrete experiences and form basic concepts. So, they should be taken out for picnics and excursions, provide them with a variety of play materials and also expose them to a variety of situations and experiences.
Peer group interaction: Children not only learn from adult interaction but they also learn a lot by interacting among themselves i.e. with other children. They share experiences and interpretations and this helps in their thinking skills, thus leading to clarification of concepts.
Social class differences: Social class differences are another factor that affects the child’s cognitive development. It can either be due to all or many or a few of the following reasons:
Under nourishment or malnourishment of the child
Illiterate or semi-literate parents who cannot be adequate role models and interact meaningfully with their children.
Impoverished conditions or lack of a variety of materials and experiences.
Socio-emotional factors: the emotional level of a child determines the child’s motivation and cognitive development. Those children whose parents are unable to provide them a secure, trusting and accepting environment are likely to perform much below their potential.
Attitudes of parents and teachers. these also are important variables that affect the cognitive development in children. If they expect more from the child they respond well. That means a positive, encouraging, appreciative attitude of a parent or a teacher motivates the child to do better, while a discouraging attitude obstructs the child’s performance. But the expectations must be consistent with the child’s ability and level of development.
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