What are the cognitive limits of a 7 year old, if any?

Question

What adult tasks would he or she be unable to do?

Answer 1

Most seven year olds are notoriously bad at quantum physics. Therefore they are unable to publish acceptable papers in scholarly journals. The one exception to this rule would be seven year old border collies, which have no use for journals of any kind anyhow.

Answer 2

Based on a handout given to me by my Psychosocial Dynamics professor, written by Rutter Hersov, author of Child and Adolescent Psyciatry, these are the tasks your child should be able to complete by this age:
LANGUAGE
Understands concepts of number, speed, time and space
Understands left and right
Understands abstract terms
Is able to categorize items into semantic classes
Uses language to tell stories, share ideas, and discuss alternatives
Increasing use of varied grammer; spontaneous self-correction of grammatical errors
Stabilizing articulation of f, v, s, z, l, r, th, and consonant clusters
Speech is 100% intelligible
BEHAVOIRAL
Rides two-wheel bicycle
Prints name
Copies triangles
Ties shoe laces

These are all things that should have been mastered before 7 years of age. There are, of course, acceptions when mastery of these tasks are not facilitated by instruction for elders (i.e. teachers, parents, etc), but for most families, I don't think this is usually a problem. The child should be at the stage where he or she is able to read, study, and play with peers (other children tend to keep each other in check if not adhering to "the rules"). He or she should be mastering learning to make friends and will tend to feel inferior if ostracized. Children will not usually go into the independent state until adolescence.

In class we are always warned, children are not minature adults and should never be viewed as such. Think of them as adults in training. Expect them at this age to be learning responsibilities of adulthood in a stepwise fashion of the difficulty. Full cognitive development of their awareness and things such as consequences may not cement into to their teens (sometimes late teens). There of course are ALWAYS, environmental factors need to be taken into consideration.

As for specifics, lets take laundry for example. The child should understand the reason for seperating darks from lights, rough fabrics from delicates, where to look for the instructions and able to follow them. The child however would not benefit from knowing how to open the bleach bottle (especially since their neurologic system is still exponentially developing into their teens).

Hope this helps!
Usually online if you have any questions! :-)

Answer 3

are you talking about chores? they can do anything that they can reach, with training and supervision. my daughter who is 7 does the dishes at least once a week, cleans her room and the bathroom including the tub and the toilet. they are very self absorbed so they can't really be empathetic. otherwise they can do almost anything they are taught to do based on the child of course.

Answer 4

What kind of a question is this???? there are LAWS against child labor etc u know that rite? why would you ask such a dumb question...
so stupid. uh what sort of things can my 7 year old child do? i know she can pick up her toys...but is this limited to heavy labor like moping floors...doing laundry...cooking...? how ignorant. you OUGHT to know what your kid is capable of. u would think. even if u arent a parent. lets use a lil common sense here...

Answer 5

Balance a checkbook?