AGES 8 AND UNDER
Cognitive Development
in Youth Hockey
LESSON WORKBOOK
DR. DAN FREIGANG
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Cognitive Development in Youth Hockey
8U COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT
• We tend to assume that all kids have talent. Young athletes have a genetic pre-disposition from their parents
and are also influenced by their environment.
• As a coach, you have the ability to influence their character and personality while helping them develop skills of the game.
• Through training, we expose and change their genes and help them develop into something that wasn’t predetermined.
• Children experience neural growth until about the age of 12.
o Their brains are wide open and grow significantly.
o This is one reason we want them to have lots of experiences, lots of multi-lateral tasks such as running, jumping and the development of physical literacy.
o We want to avoid specialization and expose them to as much movement and stimulation as possible.
• We need to focus on training the motor skills system….coordination, technical skills, technique.
• These athletes have very low self awareness. They are still learning who they are, what they do well, what they do poorly, etc.
• Their emotions are often not under control. As a coach, you might see very emotional behaviors on the ice. Use these as teaching situations.
• Gross motor patterns (basic skating, shooting, etc.) will be widely varied. You might see a large variance of
maturity levels, possibly up to 5 years.
• These young athletes think very concretely.
o As adults, we have the ability to think abstractly and can string together multiple thoughts.
o Kids do not have this ability; they can only think about one thing at a time.
o This is another reason we want to avoid training related to tactics.
o What they think about…..is what is directly in front of them.
• Parents are the main influence at this age. It is a good idea to communicate with the parents on a regular basis.
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Cognitive Development in Youth Hockey
• These athletes tend to play by themselves and have tremendous imagination.
• Keep them moving as much as possible. They will learn the most when they are doing things. Explain and give feedback while they are doing things.
• Athletes this age love to mimic. Avoid using complex verbiage. One of the best things you can do is say, “do
this” and then demonstrate what you’d like them to do.
• Focus on one task at a time. Use metaphors that will grab their attention.
• Focus on the idea of time on task. We want to make basic skills (skating, puckhandling) automatic so they don’t
have to think about it.
• Allow your players to experience success and then make activities more complex.
• Failure is a great teacher! When a player experiences failure, the coach should teach, instruct and explain so
that the player adapts and improves.
• As a coach, you should spend significant time demonstrating, explaining, giving feedback, guiding with
questions and encouraging discovery.
• Be an active coach! The best coaches are task-oriented and spend most of their time teaching.
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Cognitive Development in Youth Hockey
NOTEPAD:
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