Cognitive
What is a cognitive approach?
A cognitive approach uses cognitive strategies, which are "a mental plan of action that helps a person to learn, problem solve, and perform and that the use of cognitive strategies can improve an individual’s learning, problem solving, and task performance in terms of efficiency, speed, accuracy, and consistency". Those strategies "can be restricted to specific activities and contexts or can be used widely across many different situations. For example, the strategy of mentally visualizing oneself keeping both feet together while jumping rope is specific to the task of jumping rope; however, the broad strategy of mental imagery can also be applied across different tasks". 6
Why is the cognitive approach important for children with DCD?
Cognitive approach uses a problem-solving framework to help children develop cognitive strategies, acquire tasks, and generalize from the learning of one skill to the next. This is important for children with DCD since they will have to use problem-solving strategies for any new motor skills they must acquire. More about the importance of Cognitive approach
Importance of a Cognitive Approach
Cognitive approach:
- is based on the premise that children with DCD may be deficient in their ‘declarative knowledge’ related to motor tasks. That is, they lack knowledge of how to approach a task, how to determine what is required for the task, and how to develop strategies to use when learning and performing a motor task
- uses cognition to help children to learn to monitor their performance and self-evaluate. Therapists act as mediators to guide children to discover problems, generate solutions, and evaluate their success independently
Some key cognitive principles for interventions include:
- Modality-specific strategies: visual, tactile, auditory and/or kinesthetic cues are used to focus attention on certain aspects of a task which are relevant to successful completion of the task
- Mental or self-verbalization strategies: different techniques are used to guide the child to visualize, analyze or explain a particular task or movement to foster their understanding of the task and its relevant parts
- Transfer and generalization: use a strategy you have discovered and transfer it to a new task or situation (and use strategy you have previously discovered for the task you are currently practicing).
Question for Reflection
In the videos in the section "Are some approaches better?", identify some examples of task-oriented principles used by the therapist.
Click here for some examplesIn the videos in the section "Are some approaches better?", identify some examples of task-oriented principles used by the therapist.
Some examples of the utilization of motor learning principles in the video include:- Modality specific strategies: The therapist used an "X" on the floor to provide a visual cue to indicate to Max where to jump.
- Mental or self-verbalization strategies: The therapist used a video to show Max how he was skipping, and asked questions such as "What were your arms doing?". She also used demonstrations and asked Max questions about how he was doing the activity and how he needed to be doing it (e.g., Therapist: "What am I doing?". Max: "You are jumping all over the place". Therapist: "What do you think you should do". Max: "Try to stay on one tile/the same place"). She also demonstrated two different arm movements, and asked Max to describe the difference.
- Transfer and generalization: The therapist asked specific questions to transfer newly acquired strategies (e.g., "What skipping strategies can you transfer to tumbling?").
