Child Development Timeline

By treeeli

  • Birth

    Language
    -Newborns prefer the language they heard in the womb
    -In utero, the babies learn about prosody of their native language
    ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

    Emotions
    -Newborns have one general dimension of feeling: positive-negative
    ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
    Percpetion/Cognition
    -Vision is greyscale
    -Visual scanning is basic

  • 1 Month Old

    Language
    -can differentiate between phonemes

  • 2 Months Old

    Language
    -(developmental milestone) cooing
    ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
    Emotions
    -2-3 months: social smiles appear
    ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
    Perception/Cognition
    -Color perception appears (red first)
    ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
    Motor
    -Most motor reflexes disappear

  • 3 Months Old

    Emotions
    -rudimentary recognition of others' emotions (happiness, surprise, anger)

  • 4 Months Old

    Emotions
    -Baby begins to experience anger
    ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
    Perception/Cognition
    -Acquire ability to follow slow moving targets
    -Acquire ability to use binocular disparity to perceive depth
    -Acquire ability to use movement cues for object segregation

  • 5 Months Old

    Emotions
    -Baby's first laugh
    -Initial emotion regulation skills emerge (self-comforting and self-distracting behaviors)
    ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
    Perception/Cognition
    -Adult like color perception (cones fully matured)

  • 6 Months Old

    Language
    -Able to differentiate between speech sounds of a non-native language (Werker et al 1988)
    -Able to understand native language's high frequency words
    ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
    Perception/Cognition
    -Acquire ability to use monocular depth cues

  • 7 Months Old

    Language
    -Word segmentation ability begins
    -(developmental milestone) babbling
    ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
    Emotions
    -Baby begins to show the fear response
    -Can distinguish between fear and sadness in others
    ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
    Motor
    -Able to sit independently and reach

  • 8 Months Old

    Language
    -Perceptual narrowing begins: start to lose the ability to distinguish non-native phonemes
    ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
    Emotions
    -Baby begins to show the stranger danger response
    ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
    Perception/Cognition
    -Visual acuity and visual scanning reach adult-like levels

  • 9 Months Old

    Perception/Cognition
    -Synaptic pruning leads to face specialization
  • Period: to

    10-12 Months

    Language
    -Ability to distinguish non-native phonemes declines to adult levels
    -(developmental milestone) first words: typically refer to family members, pets, or important objects
    ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
    Perception/Cognition
    -A-not-B error disappears (12 mo)
    -Joint attention and imitation behaviors emerge (9-12 mo)

  • 15 months

    Emotions
    -Separation anxiety declines

  • 18 months

    Language
    -(developmental milestone) knows 50 words: the vocabulary spurt

  • 2 yrs Old

    Language
    -(developmental milestone) telegraphic speech
    -Conversation between peers is egocentric
    ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
    Emotions
    -The peak of the anger response
    -Self conscious emotions emerge (shame, guilt, pride, etc.)

  • 5 yrs Old

    Language
    -mastered the basics of grammar
    -Conversation now involves turn taking and reference to multiple timepoints
    ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
    Emotions
    -Self-comforting strategies for dealing with problems have been mostly phased out, self-distracting still remains sometimes
    -Children now attempt to primarily use cognitive strategies and problem solving to deal with issues