Developmental Milestones

Each child’s physical, social, emotional, and intellectual and language development will be looked at through age stages. All of these categories are as important as each other and can each have a substantial impact on the child’s full adult potential.

The first stage of Erikson's psychosocial stage is trust vs. mistrust, which is experienced, in the first year of life. Infants learn to trust in order to satisfy their needs thus developing a feeling of self-worth. When infants receive inconsistent care they

A child’s development can be measured through physical and language milestones, intellectual, emotional and social development.

The difference between sequence of development and rate of development is that a sequence of development is the order in which the development of a child will occur. The rate of development is in which speed/ time this development would happen. Child development experts have carried out a lot of research on young children to work out what most children can do at different ages and the rate at which they grow. From this research, milestones have been identified. A ‘milestone of development’ refers to the age at which most children should have reached a certain stage of development. We think about stages and sequences of development in stages:

1. From birth to 19 years of age, children and young people tend to follow a broad developmental plan. Although children and young people are different, the way they grow and develop is often quite similar. This means we can work out a pattern for development and from this we can pinpoint particular skills or milestones that most children can do at different age ranges. Milestones describe when particular skills are achieved, such as walking, usually achieved by 18 months. These milestones have been draw up by researchers looking at children’s development and working out an average from their recordings. However as children grow older the variations between individuals grow

* Become more interested in small objects, paying attention to them; able to find hidden objects.

They will be delayed in their physical development due to difficulties with the lower brain which is responsible for balance and co-ordination. They may also have a difference in muscle tone and find it difficult to gauge how much to grip an object. This delay in physical development will have an impact on the child’s social and emotional development also as they may not get as much chance to play and interact with other children in their peer group.

The success of this stage is measured by the feeling of safety and security of our world. This will set the child up for success for the rest of their life. The other side is failure that would lead mistrust and the feeling of insecurity of the world around them. This will set them up to have issues especially in relationship. McLeod mentions, “For example, if the care has been harsh or inconsistent, unpredictable and unreliable then the infant will develop a sense of mistrust and will not have confidence in the world around them or in their abilities to influence events” (McLeod 19).

The reason why Ms. Carolyn stated that it is important to track developmental milestones is because you will never know when you will catch something different from the child. It also helps with making a milestone checklist because it helps with keeping up with each child’s progress. Because of using a checklist, it helps keep Ms. Carolyn in check and helps with thinking of things her children should be doing next. It’s also important to track developmental milestone because it’s useful for the families of the children. The reason why it is important for the families is because it can give great information with families so they know what to look for next along with her.

Children's interactions with their system impact their development. The system can include the parents, other kids, other adults and family members (Hutchison, pg. 423, 2013). In this stage as long as infants are receiving adequate

| * Repetitive play as the baby enjoys doing something over and over again * Crying if they cannot see their parent or carer * Maybe shy around strangers

Pediatrician and some parents uses Developmental Milestones to help check how their patient or child is developing. They also use Developmental Milestone in autism. Autism is a complicated disorder of the brain’s growth and development. It is a lifelong condition, with symptom that appear in early childhood. There is no known cause of autism. It is not caused by the parenting circumstances nor genetic genes. Autism is not caused by any medical treatment or any vaccination. People think that Autism is different from Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Autism Spectrum Disorder and Autism are both general terms for a complex disorder of brain development.

Developmental milestones describe a set of functional skills that many children can do at a particular age range. These milestones help measure how your baby is developing, such as the first word, or first smile. Even though milestones have an approximate age level, every child is unique, and the age when a child reaches that milestone can vary quite a lot. Beginning at age four months, babies learn to coordinate perceptive and motor abilities. This is the age of discovery when they develop skills like grasping, rolling over, sitting up, and their feet.

The first year of an infant’s life can be a time of great joy and learning, developmental growth physically, mentally and emotionally while providing an opportunity for parents to ensure their infant’s needs are being met. In 1965 Erik Erikson developed eight psychosocial growth stages beginning with Stage 1, ‘trust vs. mistrust’, which occurs from birth and throughout the first year of an infant’s life (Candlin 2008, p.76).

Children grow and develop at different rates; however, most pass through an identifiable skill “set” along the way. These skills, called developmental milestones, build on each other, from simple to complex, during predictable time periods for most children. Milestone charts, such as one provided below, represent a timetable for mastery of some developmental milestones for a certain age group.