Jenkins – cognitive sensitivity

What we’re interested in when we’re looking at cognitive sensitivity is how much an educator can get into the mind of a child, and think about what that child is interested in and build on that interest while they’re talking to the child. 

We’ve looked at this in parents. We’ve looked at this in siblings. And what we find in parents, siblings and educators is it’s related to children’s language outcomes. So, what we think happens is that you really need a close connection to a child in order to figure out what they’re most interested in in order to watch their gaze and see where they’re looking in order to be able to build on their curiosity. It’s a bit like the way children play and we have to think about how can we add to that and support that. 

So, we’re trying to capture those interests and what we show with that parent effect is that when you have more of that your language skills are better, your – a lot of your school readiness skills, your early academic learning is better. That’s true for parents; it’s true when you have siblings who are more attentive to you. 

We’re interested in the same thing with educators and we’re – then we’re thinking about how can we train educators to get better at that – to be noticing where children are looking, how to build on those interests.