Cognitive Development Case Study

Cognitive development begins at birth and continues throughout our lifetime. Babies are born with a billion neurons which begin making connections at birth. From a mother’s voice to a baby’s coo, they are making connections. Thus beginning to understand language development. Since first language acquisition is not defined by the person’s home language, it lends itself to understanding the sounds around them. As babies begin to imitate sounds we see the product of first language acquisition. In Marciela’s case, she had already begun this stage in her home language of Spanish. She moved with her family to New York at the age of three where she began preschool. Although she was exposed to English in the classroom, she did not begin to understand the language as much until she reached Kindergarten. She recalled having trouble trying to pronounce words that were expected to be repeated during the school day during her preschool experience.

F., & Boyle, O. F. (2016). This was interesting to me, as a mother myself, this theory is exactly how my children have learned to speak. In my background of early childhood education, this theory is common practice for children to develop their cognitive and language skills. Engaging in conversation to connect small phrases to sentences creates opportunities for children to expand their comprehension of the language. The use of visuals were used as strategy of teaching in Marciela’s early learning. This allowed for her to make connections easier. In her speech class, she was given opportunities to explore but it was mainly on a one on one level. A strategy that would have been helpful in social conversation is to allow students to work in pairs or small groups to discuss a problem. Have literate students write short sentences or words in graphic organizers and share with each