What are some strategies for maintaining and/or enhancing cognition in advanced age?

 
Cognitive Development and Decline
 
Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky’s developmental theories offer us two frameworks for understanding our cognitive processing as we age. Aspects of cognition, such as information processing, attention, or memory can be different in childhood as compared to senior adulthood.
To prepare for this Discussion, review this week’s Learning Resources. Consider what Piaget and Vygotsky had to say in their theories of cognitive development.
By Day 3, post a comprehensive response to the following:
 

• How do the patterns of cognitive development, observed throughout childhood, contrast with those seen in advanced aging?
• Is cognitive decline inevitable with aging?
• What are some strategies for maintaining and/or enhancing cognition in advanced age?

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RESOURCES

 
Media
Video: Laureate Education (Producer). (n.d.). Aging across the lifespan: Cognitive development [Video file]. Retrieved from https://class.waldenu.edu
Note: The approximate length of this media piece is 33 minutes.
In this week’s media, presenters Dr. Nina Lyon-Bennett and Dr. John C. Cavanaugh discuss: the development of a sense of self; motor development and Piaget’s four stages of cognitive development; theorist Lev Vygotsky and the impact of culture on cognitive development; the differences in information processing between adolescents and adults; practical intelligence; lifelong learning; and physiology and cognition as we get older, including memory issues and information processing.
 
Readings
 

• Course Text:   Kail, R. V., & Cavanaugh, J. C. (2016). Human development: A life-span view. (7th ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.
  • Chapter 4, “The Emergence of Thought and Language: Cognitive Development in Infancy and Early Childhood”
  • Chapter 6, “Off to School: Cognitive and Physical Development in Middle Childhood”
    • Section 6.1, “Cognitive Development”
  • Chapter 8, “Rites of Passage: Physical and Cognitive Development in Adolescence”
    • Section 8.3, “Information Processing During Adolescence”
  • Chapter 10, “Becoming an Adult: Physical, Cognitive, and Personality Development in Young Adulthood”
    • Section 10.3, “Cognitive Development”
  • Chapter 13,  “Making It in Midlife: The Biopsychosocial Challenges of Middle Adulthood”
    • Section 13.2, “Cognitive Development”
  • Chapter 14, “The Personal Context of Later Life: Physical, Cognitive, and Mental Health Issues”
    • Section 14.3, “Cognitive Processes”

• • What makes an individual? While it could be argued that it is one’s physiological appearance or how one interacts with others, it is cognition—the mental processes of active acquisition of knowledge and comprehension—that, in many ways, defines who we are. The brain’s higher-level functions encompass language, imagination, perception and planning; shaping our outlook on life and our approach to others. In this week’s textbook reading, you will examine elements of cognition such as: thinking, knowing, remembering, judging, and problem-solving across the lifespan.