CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

Early childhood has been considered as a sensitive period, filled with "windows of opportunity" to enhance cognitive and socio-emotional functions. In this sense, the educational and family context is an optimal environment favoring the integral development of children. The main objective was to train teachers in socio-cognitive functioning for children in initial education in Mendoza (Argentina), to optimize these functions in their students. The project was carried out in 2 public pre-primary schools, with different socio-contextual characteristics: the first school was located in an urban area; and the second was in a socially-vulnerable area. We worked with 257 initial-level students (4-5 years). The work was carried out in 3 stages: First stage consisted of theoretical-practical training for teachers as promoters of socio-cognitive development in their students. Second, children were evaluated in order to investigate, maturity indicators, attention, working memory and identification of emotions. For their part, the teachers answered the Executive Functioning Scale (Korzeniowski & Ison, 2019). The third stage was Post-evaluation, in which the socio-cognitive performance in children, the teachers and the parents´ perception of the applied stimulation program were evaluated. The results showed significant improvements in children´s performance in different socio-cognitive functions after stimulation strategies were applied intensively and systematically in the school context. In turn, 81% of the teachers gave a positive assessment of the training sessions, highlighting the relevant support of the provided materials and strategies. 79% of the parents considered that the stimulation program produced significant advances in school performance of their children.