Cognitive Abilities
What is a Cognitive Ability?
These are brain-based skills to acquire knowledge, information, and reasoning.
In this section of "Learning Across the Lifespan" the argument being made about Cognitive Ablities is that "...There can be substantial variability in the trajectory- as they age." Teachers are often figuring out what lessons work on older students, and the methods used to retain their cognitive skills.
Why are Cognitive Skills important in the classroom?
As the ability to retain knowledge by any means start to depreciate as the students get older, we as teachers need to expand our horizons to more ways that may benefit the student of retaining new information. This includes being more creative, and utilizing any means to make sure the information sticks with them.
This video from the Kahn Academy gives insightful facts about cognitive learning as we age.
According to research when an Adult reaches 60, their ability to create and contribute to a knowledge platform slowly declines. But when it comes to memory, most adults retain that even at an older age.
This section makes the argument that in "...late adulthood- the cognitive abilities associated with learning novel information, memory, and speed, this stage has also been associated with increased skill in solving social dilemmas (Grossman et al., 2010)."
This video is used to demonstrate how to teach cognitive development psychology in the classroom.
These are examples of 2 extremes:
"SUPER AGERS," Older Adults that perform with cognitive skills of a Younger Adult
VS
Older Adults with mild cognitive impairment, or dementia
This video is a compilation of movie clips highlighting examples of Cognitive Distortions.
Older Adults could identify the negative consequence of social decision making compared to Younger Adults.
Older Adults focus on broader outlooks on social conflicts with whoever is involved. This is what it means to be "WISE."
Research shows that "Life Satisfactions (Waldinger et al., 2015) can help reduce the declines of cognitive skills associated with aging.
Also a "Social Network" (Glymour et al,., 2008) compared to being lonely (Wilson et at., 2007) slows the rate of age-related cognitive declines (Kensinger, 2016)
The effects of aging can be thought of a relationship between an individual and their environment.
Age can minimize or exaggerate the effects of culture
Example: Americans and Chinese people associate information are larger for Older Adults than Younger Adults. (Gutchess et al., 2006).
Research states that the "effects of culture are minimized as resources become depleted with age" (Kensinger, 2016; Park and Gutchess, 2002).
Cognitive Ability research is still ongoing. Whether it has to do with environment, the culture, they "...will need to be considered in order to understand the reasons for variations in cognitive aging trajectories." (Kensinger, 2016.)
