Cognitive Developmental Milestones

Cognitive milestones represent important steps forward in a child's development. Throughout human history, babies were often thought of as simple, passive beings. Prior to the 20th-century, children were often seen simply as miniature versions of adults. It wasn't until psychologists like Jean Piaget proposed that children actually think differently than adults do and that people began to view childhood and adolescence as a unique period of growth and development.

Adults often dismissed the remarkable intellectual skills of infants and very young children, but modern thinkers and researchers have discovered that babies are in fact always learning, thinking, and exploring the world around them.

Even newborn infants are actively taking in information and learning new things. In addition to gathering new information about the people and the world around them, babies are also constantly discovering new things about themselves.

The first three months of a child's life are a time of wonder. Major developmental milestones at this age are centered on exploring the basic senses and learning more about the body and the environment. During this period, most infants begin to:

• See objects more clearly within a distance of 13 inches
• Focus on moving objects, including the faces of caregivers
• Tell between sweet, salty, bitter, and sour tastes
• Detect differences in pitch and volume
• See all colors in the human visual spectrum
• Respond to their environment with facial expressions
• Demonstrate anticipatory behaviors like rooting and sucking at the site of a nipple or bottle

In early infancy, perceptual abilities are still developing. From the age of three to six months, infants begin to develop a stronger sense of perception. At this age, most babies begin to:

• Recognize familiar faces
• Respond to the facial expressions of other people
• Recognize and react to familiar sounds
• Begin to imitate facial expressions

Looking inside the mind of an infant is no easy task. After all, researchers cannot just ask a baby what he or she is thinking at any given moment. To learn more about the mental processes of infants, researchers have come up with a number of creative tasks that reveal the inner workings of the baby brain.

From the age of six to nine months, researchers have found that most infants begin to:

• Understand the differences between animate and inanimate objects
• Tell the differences between pictures depicting different numbers of objects
• Utilize the relative size of an object to determine how far away it is
• Gaze longer at "impossible" things such as an object suspended in midair

As infants become more physically adept, they are able to explore the world around them in greater depth. Sitting up, crawling, and walking is just a few of the physical milestones that allow babies to gain a greater mental understanding of the world around them.

As they approach one year of age, most infants are able to:

• Understand the concept of object permanence, the idea that an object continues to exist even though it cannot be seen
• Imitate gestures and some basic actions
• Respond with gestures and sounds
• Like looking at picture books
• Manipulate objects by turning them over, trying to put one object into another, etc.

After reaching a year of age, children's physical, social, and cognitive development seems to grow by leaps and bounds. Children at this age spend a tremendous amount of time observing the actions of adults, so it is important for parents and caregivers to set good examples of behavior.

Most one-year-olds begin to:

• Understand and respond to words
• Identify objects that are similar
• Tell the difference between "Me" and "You"
• Imitate the actions and language of adults
• Can point out familiar objects and people in a picture book
• Learn through exploration

At two years of age, children are becoming increasingly independent. Since they are now able to better explore the world, a great deal of learning during this stage is the result of their own experiences.

Most two-year-olds are able to:

• Sort objects by category (i.e., animals, flowers, trees, etc.)
• Stack rings on a peg from largest to smallest
• Imitate more complex adult actions (playing house, pretending to do laundry, etc.)
• Identify their own reflection in the mirror by name
• Respond to simple directions from parents and caregivers
• Name objects in a picture book
• Match objects with their uses

Children become increasingly capable of analyzing the world around them in more complex ways. As they observe things, they begin to sort and categorize them into different categories, often referred to as schemas. Since children are becoming much more active in the learning process, they also begin to pose questions about the world around them. "Why?" becomes a very common question around this age.

At the age of three, most kids are able to:

• Demonstrate awareness of the past and present
• Actively seek answers to questions
• Learn by observing and listening to instructions
• Organize objects by size and shape
• Understand how to group and match object according to color
• Have a longer attention span of around 5 to 15 minutes
• Asks "why" questions to gain information

As they near school age, children become better at using words, imitating adult actions, counting and other basic activities that are important for school preparedness.

Most four-year-olds are able to:

• Rhyme
• Name and identify many colors
• Draw the shape of a person
• Count to five
• Tell where they live
• Draw pictures that they often name and describe

For many parents, encouraging children's intellectual development is a point of major concern. Fortunately, children are eager to learn right from the very beginning. While education will soon become an enormous part of a growing child's life, those earliest years are mostly influenced by close family relationships, particularly those with parents and other caregivers. This means that parents are in a unique position to help shape how their children learn, think, and develop.

In the home, parents can encourage their children's intellectual abilities by helping kids make sense of the world around them. When an infant shows interest in an object, parents can help the child touch and explore the item as well as saying what the object is. For example, when a baby looks intently at a toy rattle, the parent might pick up the item and place it in the infant's hand saying "Does Gracie want the rattle?" and then shake the rattle to demonstrate what it does.

As kids grow older, parents should continue to encourage their children to actively explore the world. Try to have patience with young children who seem to have an endless array of questions about each and everything around them.

Parents can also pose their own questions to help kids become more creative problems solvers. When facing a dilemma, as questions such as "What do you think would happen if we…?" or "What might happen if we….?" By allowing kids to come up with original solutions to problems, parents can help encourage both intellectual development and self-confidence.