Nastava i Vaspitanje (Jan 2015)
The cognitivist approach to the development of functional thinking of junior elementary school students
Abstract
The paper deals with the cognitivist approach to the development of functional thinking from the period of preschool and early school age. Some recent scientific results on the capacity of child's brain undoubtedly indicate the fact that the experience that children receive on a daily basis, the way they receive and respond to the outside impressions and the stimuli to which they react shape their brain and influence the development of their general personality. A continuous fight for dominance takes place among the brain neurons, the result of which is creation the new connections between active neurons and new brain controls. The principal intention of the author is to stress the importance of a correct approach to an early-age development at the point of which the most intense development of the brain cells takes place and the paths for the total development of personality are traced out. Therefore, what happens to a child in this period is consequential for further development. The goal of this work is to stress that total cognitive development is conditioned by the development thinking at an early age. Therefore, the way we stimulate the child's functional thinking at an early pre-school age is extremely important and requires a more serious approach. Logical tasks and problem-solving situations are of special importance for the development of logical cognitive structures. The child's natural and social environments stimulate several sensory cooperative activities and increase the impact on perception, thus increasing a number of synapses. A methodological approach to activities to result in a functional thinking of children at an early age should be developed in such a way as to satisfy some higher demands than is the case with the current ones, i.e. it should stimulate children's further cognitive development.
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