Developmental Milestone

Most people want to know what a Developmental Milestone is. This is an ability that is achieved by most children by a certain age. These milestones can involve, physical, social, emotional, cognitive and communication skills, walking, sharing with others, expressing emotions, recognizing familiar sounds and talking.

The four major categories for these developmental milestones are…

Physical
These include large motor skills and fine motor skills. The large motor skills include sitting up, standing, crawling and walking are are usually the first to develop. Fine motor skills include grasping at a spoon, holding objects, drawing shapes and picking up small objects.

Cognitive
Cognitive is centered around the child's ability to think, learn and solve problems. When an infant responds to someone's facial expressions this is a sign of cognitive milestone.

Social and emotional
When a child understands their own emotions and other people's emotions, and can learn how to interact with other people, this is called social and emotional milestones

Communication
Language and nonverbal communication is involved in this milestone.

Every parent must remember that each child is unique and that each child's milestone will develop on it's own time, even though these milestones typically take place during a certain time in the child's life. These developmental abilities tend to build on each other and will come more easily to the child if it is practiced.

A child generally begins to walk anytime between the ages of 9 and 15 months, just because the child is walking at 11 months doesn't mean that another child is behind if he/she is not walking at 12 months. So, anytime between 9-15 months is normal. On the other hand, if a child is over 15 months and still cannot walk, the parents might consider consulting their child's primary care provider or a developmental specialist to determine if some type of developmental issue is present.

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