“DEVELOPMENTAL milestones” are guidelines health professionals use to help measure a child’s development, much like we use height, weight and head circumference to help us measure a child’s growth.
Development, like growth, follows a predictable pattern. Children sit before they walk. They babble before they speak in sentences. They smile. Parents often have concerns about their child’s development and may forget to ask these at their regular checkups, so often busy with “physical things” like listening to the heart, trying to look in the ears or giving immunizations.
During the first year of life, much of our concern is with a child’s physical health and growth. Are they eating enough? Gaining weight fast enough? Too fast? Is the head growing enough? Too little? Too much? Are there any inherited problems?
By the end of the first year, many of these physical issues have been sorted out and it is time to focus more clearly on developmental milestones. Here are some tips that may help you.
Socialization. Infants go through many social stages during their first year. They look at faces. They smile. They laugh. By the 6-9 month checkup most infants have learned to recognize strangers, and not like it. Doctors included. By age one children are pretty self centered and are learning how to get people to do what they want! Being with other children is exciting, but children don’t really play together (take turns, share) until they are older.
Independence. Barry Brazleton, MD, one of the real greats of pediatrics, wrote a marvelous book about the second and third years of life subtitled, “A Declaration of Independence.” How true. By 1-1 1/2 year of age most toddlers have extreme mood swings. Extreme. Psychologists see this as some sort of internal struggle between being independent, (“I do it myself!”) and dependent (“Please take care of me.”). Parents see it as the beginning of the “terrible two’s.”
Drawing. Children are not born artists, though most of our refrigerators are covered with their attempts as if they were the works of Picasso. But children do love, and need, to scribble. By age one most children can grasp a fat crayon and scribble on a piece of paper (or pretty close). By 18 months most children’s scribbles actually begin to look like something.
Speech and Language. Probably nothing makes us seem more human than our ability to communicate with one another. By the end of year one most children understand a lot. By age one they are ready to make statements of their own. Most infants have a few words by age one – typically “mommy” and “da-da” and the names of other important individuals, like the cat or the dog. This escalates rapidly during the second year of life. Most children have about 20 “words” by 14 months; 200 by age two; almost 1000 by age three. Two-year-olds can put two words together and make their first “sentence.” “Want milk” is typical. Infants have also begun to understand the emotional power of certain words, and use them to their advantage. “No” is one such “power word.” Infants often use this word, enjoying the reaction it gets from their caretakers, even when they mean “yes.” There are some unprintable “power words” infants also learn, quickly, when daddy hits his finger or mommy burns something on the stove. These words get a special reaction from visitors, or grandparents.
