On importance of young learners’ cognitive abilities: the Fourth Industrial Revolution’s perspective

In compliance with the priorities determined by the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the present article attempts to address selected aspects that pertain to the role of young learners’ cognitive abilities, which are brain-work related skills that individuals develop. This study is interdisciplinary in nature and is backed up by selected theoretical contributions that pertain to meaning construction in language use in intersection with the analysis of slight cognitive level impairment instances, which might result in learners’ language perception and production difficulties, where slight cognitive impairment is understood not as illness but as a signal of speaking or comprehension problems, behavioural and mood changes, or memory and concentration fade. Several factors can cause manifestation of slight cognitive impairment in the processes of language perception and production. To investigate why several traits of this impairment type might develop in learners, the authors of this article have studied selected instances that refer to spoken language disorders in a sample group of young learners who were brought up in Latvian repatriate families and who repatriated to Latvia from western countries in the period between 2021 and 2022. As a result, the study has drawn its conclusion: within the framework of the tasks set by the Fourth Industrial Revolution, young learners’ cognitive ability manifestation enhances their role in society and depends on: a) objective factors, for example, background knowledge of spoken language production principles, b) subjective factors, for example, language procession adequacy, which in certain groups of learners might be lowered due to some factors deriving from slight cognitive impairment.