The mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through one's thoughts, experience, and senses.
Knowledge and cognitive skills: Acquired skills that reflect an individual's ability to think. Cognitive skills include verbal and spatial abilities, concentration, memory, perception, reasoning, planning and organisation, flexible thinking, and problem solving.
Literacy (language): This relates to the ability to acquire, understand, and apply information in a scholarly manner.
Numeracy: This relates to the ability to understand and work with numbers.
- Introduction
Social work requires knowledge of theory and the skills of cognition. Consistent knowledge and effective cognitive skills must be demonstrated to provide professional and competent social work practice. - Description of inherent requirement
Student demonstrates:
- Capacity to locate appropriate and relevant information
- Ability to process information relevant to practice
- Ability to integrate and implement knowledge in practice.
- Justification of inherent requirement
Safe and effective social work practice is based on knowledge that must be sourced, understood and applied appropriately. A demonstrated defined range of knowledge and cognitive skills is a requirement for AASW course accreditation, field placements and professional affiliation with the AASW. - Adjustments
Adjustments must ensure that a clear demonstration of knowledge and cognitive skills is not compromised or impeded. - Exemplars:
- Ability to conceptualise and use appropriate knowledge in response to academic assessment items
- Appropriately applying knowledge of policy and procedures in the field placement setting.