Taare Zameen Par
In this fast paced world of today where the imagination of the youth is seen as the ideal investment of many a business house to further their ideologies; it is a challenge for them to upgrade their skills to suit the environments of the workplace so that their destinies are as ideal as their parents desire. What make them meet their success are not just the academic skills dished out at their institutions but the deep desire inspired within, commitment towards their aspirations and more importantly their cognitive skills. I would dare say that the Indian schools are upto the task in gearing up the child to these challenges and no wonder our students score ahead in adapting to new challenges in their studies at home or abroad and amalgamating into any work culture by taking to them like fish to water. It is because the Gitanjali Schools are good at furthering these skills in their wards they are rated amongst the best. This article looks at the cognitive skills and how they can be furthered by certain adaptations at home and school even as Homeopathic medicines may be required to fill the gap sometimes.
What are cognitive skills?
Cognitive skills are mental capacities a student needs to learn academic subjects successfully. A child with better cognitive skills can effectively easily read, think, prioritize, understand, plan, remember, and solve problems. These skills are nothing but effective tools for learning. These skills help the child to process the incoming information, attend and retain thee information, process, analyze, store facts and feelings, create mental pictures, read words and understand concepts.
But what are cognitive skills in real time?
As such the skills cannot be separated into water tight compartments as more than one skill is required to process the information and there is overlapping of skills during a task. But it helps to know them broadly as the differentiation will help in reading the strengths and weaknesses of the child in those particular skills.
They can be broadly classified as:
i) Attention
ii) Working memory
iii) Processing speed
iv) Long-term memory
v) Visual processing
vi) Auditory processing
vii) Logic and Reasoning.
Attention involves a number of processes assigning emotional importance to perceptions. These processing decisions are determined by your interest, alertness, and apprehension. Attention is probably the first of all skills that is needed for the child to imbibe knowledge. Sustained attention is necessary to complete the task over a period of time.
Selective attention is what one focuses on to do. With it one blocks out or shuts down input that is unnecessary or should be ignored. This capability keeps the brain from experiencing overload. But the child needs selective attention to be on the task when a distraction is there. But if the child is provident enough he would have divided attention to a couple of tasks at the same time.
Working memory is the ability to retain information for short periods of time while processing it or using it. If information is not retained for a short while during study there are likely to be more mistakes at his work.
Processing speed is the pace at which information is handled while working and if it is slow the working memory can also be affected as by the time he is able to process information he could forget some crucial details of the problem.
Long term memory is the ability to store and recall information for later use. If this is poor wrong conclusions and answers will be the result.
Visual processing helps the child in creating mental images, ability to perceive, think, analyze in visual images while differentiating size, color, shape, distance and orientation of the objects. Such children suffer in word comprehension and understanding new concepts.
Auditory processing helps in the child to perceive, analyze and conceptualize what is heard and helps the child to read and spell. With the differentiation in sounds, volume, pitch, the child is imparted the ability to blend words segment sounds etc. If this ability is weak the child makes mistakes while reading and spelling.
Logic and Reasoning skills are the abilities to reason prioritize and plan. If this is not on par the student could find difficulty in problem solving, comprehension and mathematics.
How does the child think and learn?
There is one called as Active thinking for simple analogies and Higher thinking for bringing out the output after some reasoning and logic.
When a question is put to the child as to what is the name of his country, an input is given to the brain in the form of attention and is referred to the Knowledge Bank in the form of working memory. Since the processing does not take much time as the answer in the active memory.
There is another situation wherein a question like the capital of Australia spelled backwards is put to a middle school student; he would hear the question and the input is referred to higher thinking skills and a lot visual processing and auditory processing is done even as logic and reasoning are called into play to visualize the answer and then spell it backwards.
Cognitive Processing – Active and Higher Successful learning requires coordination and cooperation between Active Processing and Higher Thinking cognitive skills. Here’s how weakness in any of these mental skills might affect the child’s performance:
If Attention is weak, he may never hear the request.
If Short-Term Memory is weak the child would forget the request before responding and would want the question to be repeated.
If Processing Speed is slow the request may have seemed too complex, requiring the need to have it repeated.
If Logic and Reasoning is weak he may fail to come up with a solution.
If Auditory Processing is weak he may have been unable to unglue sounds
If Long-Term Memory is weak he may have been unable to remember letters that represent the sounds.
If Visual Processing is weak he may have been unable to create a picture of the word in his head.
The point is that if any one of these cognitive skills is weak it will hinder his performance. As such it is a known fact that intelligence is God given but hard work is within the purview of the individual. But to a certain extent cognitive skills falling under intelligence can also be improved, strengthened and enhanced.
What are the factors that influence Cognitive skills? As far as a pre-primary child is concerned age appropriate toys need to be provided like building blocks, sorting and pounding toys, thick paged story books and art materials. Moving toys help as they enhance eye-hand coordination. Establishing routines with simple activities each day but not for a long time as the child’s attention would not hold for long and as they would only end up frustrated. Praising the child for his work and providing reassurance when he is frustrated would go a long way in building the confidence of the child. Research has also revealed that children who are read to by their parents have been found to have better language comprehension and better expressive vocabularies in the long run. It would also be important to know that too much of stimulation may not help the child at all as all children are not wired the same way and parents need to be supportive in this aspect.
For children in general, stimulating environments with varieties of activities are known to help the neurons or the junctions of the nerves to grow and respond. Research has also proved that a child’s cognitive, motivational, and communication skills are more highly developed when exposed to music training. It has shown to have an effect on academic performance.
It is also true that mental exercise, such as puzzles, reading, learning languages, and playing musical instruments, are key to maintaining and improving cognitive ability in children.
Let us also not forget that malnutrition during childhood has a negative impact on the intellectual capability of the growing child.
Physical activity also appears to contribute to intelligence, increasing memory retention, improving some types of problem-solving ability, and helping relieve stress. It is because physical exercise tends to improve the production of substances that improve the health of the nerve endings.
Stress has been shown to negatively affect learning and memory.
Reduced sleep leads to increase in irritability and decrease in concentration. If proper night sleep is established it will lead to decreased irritability that will reflect as a better mood reduce behavioural problems and increased concentration would have a positive effect on improving cognitive abilities. It is also known that short term social interaction with other children leads to improved intellectual performance.
Homoeopathic Medicine and Cognitive skills:
Homoeopathic Medicine has good remedies which can affect various symptoms in the body that will indirectly have a positive impact on the improvement of cognitive abilities. There are certain remedies like Nux moschata, Opm; etc., which are known to elevate one’s mood, increase alertness, improve concentration etc. For a worked out child, remedies like Alfalfa and Ac. Phos are known to improve healing and rejuvenation. Brahmi, Natrum mur are a couple of remedies that enhance alertness, memory and creativity. Emotional children are soothed to calmness by remedies like Belladonna and Hyoscyamus.
Dr.Venugopal Gouri
Consultant Homeopath,
Gouri Homeo Healthway, Hyderabad.
92463 72625 (mobile)