Growth and development are the processes that evolve with the age of a child. If growth is defined as the progressive increase in the size of a child or parts of a child, development is progressive acquisition of various skills. It is essential to understand the development of children that enables us to meet the child’s needs in terms of their abilities.
The development of children can be categorized into various types such as physical, social and emotional, intellectual and communication and speech. These developments will always occur in the same sequences but the rate of growth can be different from child to child, some children learn these skills earlier than the other. Therefore numerous studies have been carried out to identify the milestones of development. Milestone is actually referred to that particular age by which most children are expected to reach the level of development for their age. But a child who is not receiving all his or her needs could lead to serious consequences on his or her development. However, it is better to keep track the development of child according to their developmental milestones so that any delays in development can be treated by addressing them as soon as possible.
Some of the key stages in the development of child are as follows:
0-3 months: Sleeps 20 hours, crying as main form of communication, smiles at faces.
4-6 months: Babbling, distinguishing familiar people, laughing.
7-9 months: Crawls, sits without support
10-12 months: Can stand, says first real word
1-2 years: Walks without support, toilet training, vocabulary of more than 200 words.
2-4 years: can jump, copies parents’ action, shows awareness of gender identity, plays with other children, asks many why and how questions, can sing a song.
4-5 years: Dresses himself or herself, retells a story, enjoys imaginative play with other children, develops friendships.
6-12 years: Can talk through problems to solve them, begins to see others’ point of view more...