Thinking Development

AGE

MILESTONE

Birth-3 Months

Newborns begin right away to use and integrate their senses to explore their world. Most infants can:

See clearly within 13 inches
Focus on and follow moving objects, including human faces
See all colors and distinguish hue and brightness
Distinguish the pitch and volume of sound
Discriminate sweet, sour, bitter, and salty tastes
Respond with facial expressions to strong stimuli (like odors)
Prefer high contrast items and geometric shapes
Begin to anticipate events

Recognize faces
Differentiate between different people based on the way they look, sound or feel
React to and imitate the facial expressions of others
Respond to familiar sounds

3-6 Months

Babies perceptual abilities improve rapidly. At this age, they are able to:

Stare longer at "impossible" events (like ordinary objects suspended in midair)
Distinguish between inanimate and animate objects, and understand that inanimate objects must be propelled into motion by an external force
Distinguish among pictures that show different numbers of items
Use the relative size of objects as a clue to how close or how far away they are

Using ingenious research methods, scientists have found that babies begin very early to have glimmers of how the world works. Even very young babies have been found to:

6-9 Months

As they grow, children continue to explore how the world works and build on the conceptual leaps described above. At this age, most babies can:

9-12 Months

Understand that an object still exists even when it's not in view
Respond to simple directions and questions with gestures, sounds and perhaps words
Imitate gestures and actions
Experiment purposefully with the physical properties of objects, for example, by seeing how objects fit into a container or what happens if the container is turned over
Enjoy looking at picture books

1-2 Years

Children at this age spend much of their time intently observing and imitating the actions of adults. Most can:

Respond to simple directions
Choose picture books, name pictured objects, and identify several objects within one picture
Group objects by category
Stack rings on peg in order of size
Identify themselves in the mirror, saying "baby" or their own name
Relate what they are doing to others
Observe and imitate more complex adult actions (for example, housekeeping play)

A lot of learning is done through a child's own exploration, and this really takes off at this age. Most children can:

2-3 Years

Understand concepts like grouping and matching (for example, recognizing and matching colors)
Organize materials on their own, for example, by stacking blocks or rings in order of size
Identify parts of a whole, like a slice of pie
Draw, name, and briefly explain somewhat recognizable pictures that are meaningful to them
Actively seek information through why and how questions
Tell you their full name and age
Attend to an activity for a longer stretch of time (between 5 and 15 minutes)
Learn both by observing and listening to adults' explanations
Show awareness of past and present

As children have more experiences in the world, their analytic powers grow. For some time, they have been observing and mentally "sorting" objects according to their physical properties. Now most children can:

3-4 Years

Play with words, mimicking and creating sounds, and make rhymes
Point to and name many colors
Understand order and process
Draw a person with detail
Draw, name, and describe pictures
Count to 5
Tell you their street and town

At this age, children actively seek information and new experiences from the people in their environment. Most can:

4-5 Years

Imitate adults' actions and language
Understand words and commands and respond appropriately
Begin to match similar objects
Recognize and identify familiar objects in storybooks with adult assistance
Distinguish between "you" and "me"

Infants were once thought of as passive and unknowing. It was commonly believed that until they mastered language, young children were incapable of thinking or forming complex ideas. Today, we know otherwise. From the very start, young children are aware of their surroundings and interested in exploring them. Scientists from several fields have shown that from the first weeks of life, babies are active learners. They are busy gathering and organizing knowledge about their world. These milestones highlight young children's progress in developing perceptual and thinking skills.