Developmental Milestones in the First Two Years of Life

The expected pattern starts at 0-3 years where a child is expected to develop the most. They have little control over their bodies at 0-1 years and are dependent on their natural instincts eg: sucking, grasping.

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 third stage is the Concrete Operational Stage, which occurs around age seven to age eleven. This stage marks the beginning of logical or operational thoughts for the child. Their thinking becomes less egocentric, and the child can now understand that although the appearance of something changes, the “thing” itself does not. For example, if a child decided to spread out a pile of blocks, they know there are still as many blocks as there were before, even though it looks different.

From the age of seven to about eleven, children become capable of performing mental operations or working through problems and ideas in their minds. However, they can perform operations only on tangible objects and real events. Children also achieve conservation, reversibility, and decentration during this stage:

Information from carers and colleagues- the parents and carers would give helpful information that would tell the practitioners if the child has a disability and that would help tell whether they are going to need extra support. The parent knows lots about the child they would be able to tell if something is not right at home. The practitioners would notice if something is wrong at the pre-school if the practitioner is concerned about the child they would let the parent know if they think something is different. The parent could ask questions at parents meeting with the child’s key person about what the

Cognitively, the way infants process information undergoes rapid changes during the infant’s first year. For instance, the Piagetian theory of cognitive development includes (1) the sensorimotor stage in which infants, through trial an error, build their understanding of things around the world (e.g. imitation of familiar behaviour); (p. 203, Chapter 6); (2) building schemas (e.g. a 5 month old child can move or drop an object fairly rigidly, whereas an older child can do the same action but with more intentional and creative movement);(p. 202, Chapter 6) and (3) the concept of object permanence (e.g. an infant knows that an object exists even though it is hidden encourages the child’s perceptual skills and awareness of the objects ‘realness’ in the world (p.

Children develop cognition through two main stages that Jean Piaget theorized. The stages run from birth and infancy to school age children. Sensorimotor is the first stage and goes from birth to about the age of two. This stage implies that the children learn about the environment they live in and they learn this through the reflexes and movements they produce. They also learn that they are separate people from their parents and they can say goodbye to them and know they will come back. The second stage is called the preoperational stage. During this stage of development, children will learn how to incorporate symbols to represent objects. This is also the beginning of learning the alphabet and speech. The child is still very much egocentric at this point in time, but with the help of understanding educators, the child will grow appropriately onto the next stages of development. Finally, the children need to develop emotionally/socially.

It is imperative for a mother to take care of herself while pregnant. This will give the fetus a better chance at healthy developmental milestones. One way to achieve this is through a healthy diet which aids fetal brain development. Moreover, taking the supplemental vitamins recommended by the physician helps too. Finally, a mother should try to eliminate too much stress in her life while pregnant. This can have a negative impact on the pregnancy. This is what healthy development looks like during conception. At 3 months the baby is fully formed. The hands, arms, feet and toes are all present. Also, the bodily organs are present but need to mature more at this point. During the 3-6 month period is where the most rapid brain development takes place (Hutchison, 2013). This is the trimester where you begin to feel movement. At 6-9 months the baby continues to grow and mature to prepare for entry into the world.

Effectively, the stages of infant cognitive development can be viewed and explained simply. According to Piaget there are four stages of cognitive development that range from the ages of birth through adulthood. Today we will only focus on two of these stages as they pertain to the ages of birth through the ages of 24 months or two years old. The first stage is the sensorimotor stage which includes and defines the ages from birth to about 18 months of age. This stage is quickly described and defined by the infant only being aware of what’s immediately in front of them, and only interacting with those people, objects or sounds (http://www.webmd.com/children/piaget-stages-of-development Piaget Stages of Development. ©2005-2015 WebMD, LLC). Looking at Piaget’s studies even at the earliest moments of life an infant utilizes the power of their brains in the forms of basic awareness’s and communication attempts. The second

Observing John, I noticed he didn’t talk much. An average two year old child speaks more than 50 words. Infant And Toddler Heath (2015) John seemed to always point at what he wanted. In class the teacher tried to get John to say some words. John banks used his emotions to express how he was feeling. Right now he is unable to convert his expression to speech. A child who has difficulty with verbal expression may be diagnosed with expressive language disorder. Expressive language disorder (2015) You can tell by his gestures if he was happy, sad, or mad. It wasn’t hard trying to figure out Johns’ needs.

Babies or children ages birth to 12 are constantly learning new things. They learn from people around them or learned nature. Children develop and grow every year. With every year comes new milestones. New achieved milestones mean your baby is learning new things and has begun to grow into the life long character.

Piaget established that thought is developed through six sub stages, the sensorimotor stage. I will be discussing stage three and four, which are known as secondary circular reactions. In this stage, infants initiate motor activities to fulfill their own needs. Sub stage three is typically when babies reach four months and can continue up to eight months. Infants become much more responsive to people and objects in environment. They learn to repeat specific actions that have caused them pleasure. For example, a baby clapping her hands when a toy appears from behind a blanket while playing a hide and seek game. Another example is when a baby is sucking his thumb just by reflex, but then discovers it is pleasing so he will suck it habitually. In this sub stage, Infants begin to use their logic.

Important milestones in a baby's first year of life are social engagement, attention to language and communicative intent/effort. All of these milestone factors acting as stimulators for a child to develop his or her language skill. If teachers, parents and caregivers can encourage and promote language development in a child's first two years of life through providing a language environment, such as talk to this child in the language, read books to the child and teach the child how to speak of this language. My mother is a perfect example for demonstrating how a child's language skill develops. We are Korean Minority Ethnic Group. Basically, we are Chinese, but we have the same habit with Korean people, from the food we eat to the language

The infant will by accident engage in some form of behavior and if the child finds it enjoyable the child will repeat it. An example is an infant sucking their thumb. It may not have been intentional the first time, but they may repeat the action because it comforted them. At this stage the child learns how to help console themselves. These types of reactions are called primary circular reactions. This stage is about coordinating feelings and new patterns.

In the sensorimotor stage the child discovers the environment through physical actions such as sucking, grabbing, shaking and pushing. During these first two years of life children realize objects still exist, even if it is out of view. This concept is known as object permanence. Children in the preoperational stage develop language skills, but may only grasp an idea with repeated exposure. As Piaget describes in the next stage, children draw on knowledge that is based on real life situations to provide more logical explanations and predictions. Lastly, in the formal operational stage children use higher levels of thinking and present abstract ideas.