By Megan Spencer, PsyD, Licensed Psychologist, Dakota Family Services
The early years of a child's life are a period of remarkable transformation, as infants and their families navigate through numerous developmental milestones. Between the ages of 0 and 5, children experience significant growth and development in several key areas: physical, cognitive, emotional, and social-relational. Let’s take a look at all areas of growth so you know what to expect as your young child grows and develops.
Physical Development
Infants are born with several innate reflexes. These automatic, involuntary movements, which include the Moro Reflex (Startle Reflex) and Stepping Reflex (Walking Reflex), are essential for development and indicate normal nervous system functioning. Your physician will check for these reflexes at your routine visits to make sure your baby is showing normal development.
From the moment they are born, infants possess a perceptual awareness along with the foundational capabilities of their five senses, although these senses are not yet fully matured and continue to evolve as the child grows. Vision at birth is the least well developed but it improves rapidly, reaching a level comparable to an adult by the age of six months.
By the age of three months, infants can distinguish between different voices and express a clear preference for the voice of their mother or caregiver. As for taste and smell, newborns can tell the difference between sweet and non-sweet flavors within hours after birth and demonstrate a preference for sweet tastes. Studies have also revealed that newborns are sensitive to pain. The sense of touch is the first to develop and is the most refined of the senses during the first few months of life.
By the age of three months, infants are typically able to hold their head up without support and push up their trunk while lying on their stomach. At this stage, their hands usually remain open rather than clenched in fists.
By six months, children can typically sit by themselves, swat at dangling objects, roll over from stomach to back, and reach for, hold, shake, and bang objects together. By nine months, infants can typically roll over in both directions (front to back, back to front), sit independently, stand with support, crawl or scoot, pass objects between hands, and turn pages in a book.
Children’s fine and gross motor functions are developed and refined between the ages of 12 and 24 months, and by the age of two, children can typically help dress themselves by putting their arms into sleeves and pulling up their pants. They can also stand easily, run, kick balls, climb, use stairs while holding onto the railing or wall, draw, open drawers and cabinets, and use a straw.
By the age of four, children can typically skip, hop, catch large balls most of the time, use the toilet during the day with minimal accidents, pour liquids from one container to another, cut with child scissors, and mash their own food.
By the age of five, children can stand and hop on one foot, copy more complex geometric figures, like a triangle, copy some letters or numbers, use eating utensils, use the toilet independently, and swing on their own.
Cognitive Development
The brain develops faster than any other part of the body in utero and in a child’s first two years of life. At birth, the brain has already reached approximately 25-33% of its adult size, expanding to roughly 75% by the two-year mark, and nearing 90% by the age of five. During these critical first five years, the brain undergoes five distinct phases of development, referred to as synaptogenesis, where synaptic connections are formed. An infant's brain at birth contains most of the neurons it will contain. Postnatally, the neurons enlarge and develop in complexity to create a surge in neural connectivity.
The senses
Birth to age two is known as the sensorimotor stage of cognitive development. Children learn about objects and other people through their senses and through the actions that can be performed on them, like grasping and hitting. From the ages of two and seven, children are in the pre-operational stage. During this stage of cognitive development, children develop the ability to think symbolically. This important growth allows them to learn using language, mental images, and other symbols.
Language
From birth until the age of five, learning to speak and use language properly is a crucial area of development. Interestingly, kids seem to learn to talk in similar ways no matter what language they are learning. Newborns can only cry to communicate, and they cry differently to tell us if they’re hungry, tired, or upset. As babies grow, they begin to understand more words than they can say. Around six weeks to three months old, babies start to make cooing noises and laugh. These coos might sound like "ahh" and include squeals and gurgles. By three months, babies will turn their heads towards sounds. From four to six months, they babble, repeating sounds like "ma-ma-ma," and express joy or unhappiness with sounds.
By nine months old, babies can typically use gestures to communicate their wants and needs, follow simple instructions paired with gestures, and understand commonly used words like “no” and “yes.” At one year old, children should be able to respond to their name, look around when you ask where something is, make consonant sounds, point to nearby objects, imitate conventional gestures like waving and clapping, follow simple requests accompanied by gestures and speak a few words like “mama,” “dada,” “hi,” and “dog.” At 13 months, most babies understand about 50 words, by 15 months, they usually say their first words, and by 18 months, speak about 50 words.
Then, between the ages of 18 months and three years, children learn new words quickly. By two years old, children can string together two or more words like “me go” or “more juice,” but they usually only use nouns, verbs and adjectives. By 27 months, they add prepositions and pronouns and have a vocabulary of 300-400 words. At three years old, they know about 1,000 words. Between 2 ½ to 5 years old, their sentences get more complex, grammar improves, and their vocabulary continues to increase at a rate of about 50 new words a month.
Emotional Development
Babies start to show their feelings in a usual order as they grow. At birth, they can show interest, sadness, disgust, or distress with their faces. By the time they're eight months old, they also show anger, happiness, surprise, and fear. At one year old, babies start to look at their parents or caregivers to understand new things and places, and they begin to share how they feel with them. By the age of 1½, children can calm themselves down and start to joke with other kids and adults.
From 1½ to 2 years old, children begin to show jealousy and embarrassment and start to understand how others feel. By the time they're two, they can usually say or understand words for simple feelings. In their second year, kids also start to show feelings that come from being aware of rules, like shame, guilt, and pride. At three years old, they show these feelings more clearly.
By the age of four, children can use words to express distress or anger, show their feelings through pretend play, and start to follow simple rules about how to express emotions. By the age of five, they can experience and express two or more emotions at once, pay attention to and take pride in their achievements, and act with greater confidence as they become more independent and autonomous.
Social-Relational Development
Children proceed through four stages of social interaction and development—solitary, parallel, associative, and cooperative play. During the first two years of life, children’s play is primarily solitary and parallel, meaning they play alone and do not make much effort to engage in play with other children, or play beside other children using similar toys.
Between the ages of two and three, children begin to engage in associative and cooperative play which is necessary for healthy social and interpersonal development. At 36 months of age, children can show affection to peers and share toys without prompting. Children at the stage of associative play interact with other children but continue to act as they wish and do not adopt any roles. By the age of three, children can wait their turn in games, share accomplishments with others, and help with simple household chores and tasks. By the age of four, children can play cooperatively with others. They become part of a peer group that has some common goal, like making something or playing a formal game, taking on roles and supplementing the efforts of their peers.
At this age, children have preferred friends and express their interests, likes, and dislikes. Between the ages of three to five years, friendships become increasingly important, and children play with both same and opposite sex peers. By age five, children want to please their friends and value rules in social interactions. They can emulate role models, whether real or imaginary, participate in group activities that require assuming roles (like follow the leader), and modulate their voices correctly depending on the situation or listener.
In summary
The early years of a child's life are filled with remarkable growth and transformation. During this period, children progress from simple reflex actions to complex emotional and social behaviors. They develop the ability to interact meaningfully with their environment and others, starting with basic motor skills and advancing to more intricate cognitive and emotional capacities. As they grow, they learn to express a range of emotions, engage in imaginative play, and navigate social dynamics with increasing independence. This foundational period sets the stage for lifelong learning, behavior, and health.