What is required for the Cognitive Development of a Toddler? 5 Activities to Promote

Cognitive development in toddlers plays an important role in shaping their ability to think, learn, absorb and understand their surroundings. From recognizing faces to experimenting with sounds, reaching for objects, and exploring their environment, cognitive development in toddlers begins early and progresses during the first few years of life. Toddler cognitive skills form the basis of all the inputs they process in their minds; therefore, nurturing them with age-appropriate activities is the key to promoting healthy brain development. Honing these skills in toddlers at this stage will serve as a foundation for their overall development, including social, emotional, language, and problem-solving attributes for future learning.

What are toddler cognitive skills?

Toddler cognitive skills such as attention, memory and thinking enable them to process sensory information, evaluate, analyze and remember.¹ It also helps them make comparisons as well as understand cause and effect. They learn through observation, imitation, exploration and interaction with people and objects around them.

At each developmental stage during toddlerhood, a child will develop newer and more complex skills like toddlers between 2 and 3 years of age are able to stack building blocks and begin to grow more curious and independent².

Essentials for Cognitive Development of a Toddler

A combination of various aspects such as responsive interaction, exposure to a safe and stimulating environment, balanced nutrition and play based learning are key essentials for cognitive development in toddlers.

• Responsive interaction: Engaging communication with toddlers that involves talking to them about their daily actions, reading books, singing, responding to their cues helps strengthen their cognitive abilities.
• Stimulating environment: Creating a safe ambience that encourages exploration in toddlers. For example, trips to the park, use of everyday objects, toys and books can aid learning and building cognitive skills.
• Balanced Nutrition: Toddlers may eat less but require different nutrients for healthy growth and development. A balanced diet for toddlers should include carbohydrates for energy, protein for strengthening of muscles and healthy fats (especially DHA) to aid brain development.³
• Play-Based Learning: Play, besides being fun allows toddlers to explore and have hands-on experiences. Various activities like puzzles, role playing or sorting shapes can promote toddler cognitive growth.⁴

5 Activities to Promote Cognitive Development in Toddlers

You can engage your toddler in the following activities to stimulate their cognitive development. These activities can help them improve their memory, logical reasoning, and problem solving skills and develop spatial awareness and creative abilities.

1. Hide An Object: Hide an object or a toy under the blanket and ask your toddler to look for it. You may hide objects in the room and encourage them to go looking for it by providing hints. Such activities strengthen your toddler’s short-term and visual memory and lay the foundation for object permanence.¹

2. Puzzles: Get your toddler a simple two-piece puzzle which requires attention to shapes and colours and is easy to identify visually. As they try to work on it, ask them what shape or colour they need or where they think they can put a certain piece. This enables them to use their logic to complete it and helps them exercise reflection and planning skills.³

3. Constructive Play Toys: Building anything, even a simple block tower, can be a problem-solving challenge for toddlers. Give them blocks, train sets and other building toys to help them understand balance and cause-and-effect, develop coordination and deal with frustration as they learn to master the challenge.⁵

4. Create obstacle course: Set up a little course at home that helps toddlers understand space, movement, a concept like near-far, around, and contributes to spatial awareness. Let them climb, crawl or jump around. For example, place the cushions on the floor and ask the child to walk or jump across without touching the floor. Scatter some soft toys and ask the toddler to move around them without bumping.⁶

5. Pretend Play: It helps toddlers build their imagination, creativity and language skills. It also helps them understand story comprehension.⁷ For example, providing them with kitchen toys for ‘playing house’ can be fun and makes them aware of real-life situations.

Tips To Build Toddler Cognitive Skills

Here are a few tips that can help develop toddler cognitive skills⁸:

• Provide your toddler different tools for experimenting. For example, toys and objects which they can shake, bang, open and close or pull apart provide them with diverse sensory experiences.
• Use repetition in daily activities. It helps strengthen the connections in the brain that help them learn better.
• Offer simple choices and avoid over-instructing while they explore. If they seem disinterested, allow some unstructured time. This will help them regulate emotions and manage boredom or frustration effectively.

Conclusion

The brain grows rapidly from birth through the first five years of childhood. The neural connections forming inside the brain are also influenced by a child’s early experiences and opportunities for learning.⁹ Fostering a toddler’s cognitive development with consistent and stimulating activities and interactions where they can explore, learn and grow at their own pace is thus crucial for brain growth.

Simple everyday interactions, play-based learning and optimum nutrition can help in strengthening toddler cognitive skills. In addition, nutritional drinks such as Complan NutriGro, when consumed as part of a balanced diet, can support a toddler’s growth and development. Complan NutriGro contains 34 vital nutrients, including DHA, iron and folic acid, which support cognitive development in toddlers. It also contains high quality protein, and other essential vitamins and minerals.

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*Growth and cognitive development are influenced by genetic, nutrition and environmental factors. Complan to be taken as a part of daily balanced diet.

*Refer Individual pack for mandatory regulatory & statutory information. Mnemonics are for creative visualization. ® Registered Trademark *Refers to outcome of a clinical study amongst 800 children over 12 months, published in Ind. J. Nutr. Dietet., (2008), 45, 449, 495 comparing kids who consume usual daily diet vs. kids who consume usual daily diet plus 2 recommended serves (2x33g) of complan. Protein in Complan is sourced from milk.

*DAIRY BASED BEVERAGE MIX (1.1.2) PROPRIETARY FOOD.