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Cognitive development children age (2-7)

Age (2-7) is a stage of cognitive development of children, which is called the

preoperational stage, according to Piaget, who mainly focused on the stages of

development. (Altman et al., 2021). During this period, children mentally

represent past actions and events. However, they experience animism (toys

have feelings) and egocentrism (difficulty catching the perspective and points of

view of another person). (Altman et al., 2021). Moreover, failure in

conservation tasks could be seen more often or repeatedly, and this task mainly

focuses on the number count, mass, length, and liquids. (Altman et al., 2021).

This is when children experience an enhancement in their ability by using

symbols and getting involved in logical thinking, and they can express their

thoughts and feelings by using language and abstract reasoning. (Altman et al.,

2021). According to Vygotsky, sociocultural events and environment affect

children's cognitive development, and mainly parents provide assist or scaffold

children learning by providing cognitive supports. (Altman et al., 2021). During

the first phase of the preoperational stage of cognitive development, called the

pre-conceptual phase, children learn and improve language abilities, imitation,

and representations. (Lowenthal, 1975).

Studies have shown that socioeconomic conditions affect children's

cognitive development; children from families of lower socioeconomic

conditions or disadvantaged families demonstrate lower progress in their

cognitive development mainly because they begin their school with little skill

than those of advantaged or higher socioeconomic families. (Burger, 2010). If

we compare a war-torn country with a more peaceful country where there are

many socioeconomic differences among their societies and members of their

family conditions. Children who grow in a family with higher socioeconomic

conditions spend more time with their parents during their preoperational

stage. As they spend more time, they interact more, learn different concepts,

and learn more words from their parents. Thus they gain language skills during

this stage. On the contrary, parents in lower socioeconomic conditions are

busier in working and outside of the home and are more focused on earning

some money to feed their children. This causes them to have little interaction

with their children. These children, during the preoperational stage, during

which they learn a language, involve in different issues to use logical thinking

lack these skills. Another issue that arises from differences in socioeconomic

condition is that children require healthy nutrition for their body and brain to

function properly and maintain mental health, and this balance cannot be

maintained in low-income families. Thus, their children cannot get healthy

nutrition, and their brain doesn't work properly to help them grow their

cognitive skills. Vygotsky mentioned that children require their family's support

to assist them and provide cognitive support for solving complex tasks. (Altman

et al., 2021). According to Vygotsky's saying lower socioeconomic conditions

give little time for the preoperational stage children to interact with their

parents about complex tasks in which they need help to fix them, limiting their

cognitive development during this stage. Children aged two to seven years who

learn language skills and improve logical reasoning remain deprived of

improved cognitive skills. Preschool learning opportunities increase children's

learning ability. (Burger, 2010). In lower socioeconomic family children cannot

afford to go to school and kindergarten, and this causes an intense catastrophe

in their cognitive development skills. Children age 2-7 begin to go to

kindergarten, and at five, they enter school. Hence, they interact with other

children, face different issues, and perform tasks at school. These tasks can

enhance their cognitive ability, which cannot be achieved in lower-income

families. Because children from lower-income families have less interaction

with their family than higher-income family's children, these children tend to

begin interaction at an older age when they meet other children in their

primary school life. Thus, lower-income families may gain language skills and

logical thinking skills at an older age than a higher-income family's child.

Now we can suggest that socioeconomic condition and

parents-children interaction have a significant impact on the children's

cognitive development overall but more specifically, children in their

preoperational stage (2-7) of cognitive development. As we mentioned earlier

in the first and second part of the paper, children gain language skills that allow

them to express their thoughts and feelings, improve logical thinking, solve

complex issues and tasks, and enhance their cognitive ability. (Altman et al.,

2021). We can say that through interactions social and cognitive ability of

children enhances and lack of access to preschool at the age of two to seven

years cause children of the lower socioeconomic family not to gain these

intellectual and social abilities. As of my personal experience, families in

developing countries do not have enough time to read books, and they don't use

many advanced words in their daily lives.

In contrast, parents in improved countries where people's socioeconomic

condition is proportionally better than developing countries parents have

enough time to dedicate to reading books and spending time with their family.

Thus, their daily conversation includes lots of advances and words and phrases.

The children, age two to seven years old, listen to their parents. They learn a

lot of words and get fluent faster than children of lower socioeconomic

conditions. Some cultures and religions restrict their children from watching

TV and believe that watching TV deviates their children from faith. I think

watching educational movies can enhance their children's language ability, help

them solve complex tasks, and let them think about different events. So, we can

conclude that children that live in this kind of restricted culture and religious

societies cannot gain their proper cognitive development as children that live in

more open-minded communities. I think the main cause of these issues is

inequalities in society that different forms of society have caused.

References Burger, K. (2010). How do early childhood care and education affect cognitive development? An international review of the effects of early interventions for children from different social backgrounds. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 25(2), 140–165.

Lowenthal, B. (1975). Piaget's preoperational stage of development and applications for special preschoolers. Retrieved from http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED116438.pdf

Top Hat. (n.d.). Retrieved June 4, 2021, from Tophat.com website: https://app.tophat.com/e/956043/assigned/