This document summarizes key aspects of child development from birth to 2 years of age in the areas of touch, taste, smell, balance, hearing, vision, motor skills, and language development. It provides the ages at which infants typically achieve certain milestones in each area of development. For example, it notes that infants can distinguish sweet, sour and bitter tastes at birth and prefer their mother's amniotic fluid and breast milk based on smell in the first months. It also outlines the average ages at which infants learn skills like rolling over, sitting up, crawling, walking and jumping.

1. Child Development
Quick Review Tables
Dpt. Aamir Memon
8/21/2013

2. DEVELOPMENT OF TOUCH, TASTE, SMELL, BALANCE, AND HEARING
Age Touch Taste and Smell Balance Hearing
Birth →Is responsive to touch and
pain
→Can distinguish objects placed
in palm
→Distinguishes sweet, sour, and bitter tastes;
prefers sweetness
→Distinguishes odors; prefers those of sweet-
tasting foods
→Prefers smell of own mother’s amniotic fluid
and the lactating breast
→Adapts head movements to
optical flow
→Prefers complex sounds to pure tones
→Can distinguish some sound patterns
→Recognizes differences between almost all speech sounds
→Turns in the general direction of a sound
1–6 months →Frequently engages in
exploratory mouthing of objects
→Prefers salt solution to plain water
→Taste preferences are easily changed through
experience
→As motor control improves,
postural adjustments to optical flow
become more precise
→Organizes sounds into more complex patterns, such as musical
phrases
→Can identify the location of a sound more precisely
→By the end of this period, is sensitive to syllable stress patterns in
own language
7–12 months →Makes anticipatory postural
adjustments to avoid loss of
balance
→ “Screens out” sounds not used in own language
→Perceives larger speech units crucial to understanding meaning
VISUAL DEVELOPMENT IN INFANCY
Age Acuity, Color Perception,
Age Focusing, and Exploration
Depth Perception Pattern Perception Object Perception
Birth–1
month
→Visual acuity is 20/600
→Scans the visual field and tracks
moving objects
→Responds to kinetic depth
cues
→Prefers large, bold patterns
→Scans the edges of a static pattern and focuses on
single features
→Prefers simple, face-like stimuli
→Prefers attractive faces to less attractive ones
→Displays size and shape constancy
2–3
months
→Has adult like focusing ability
→Perceives colors across entire
spectrum
→Scans more thoroughly and
systematically
→Responds to binocular
depth cues
→Prefers patterns with finer details
→Thoroughly scans internal pattern features
→Begins to perceive overall pattern structure
→Prefers complex, static image of a face
→Recognizes mother’s face and distinguishes
features of different faces
→Uses motion and spatial arrangement to identify
objects
4–5
months
→Sensitivity to binocular
depth cues
improves
→Detects subjective boundaries in patterns →Uses shape, color, and texture to identify objects
→Perceives an object’s path of movement without
seeing the entire path
4–5
months
→Visual acuity improves to near
20/20
→Scans visual field and tracks
moving objects more efficiently
→Responds to pictorial
depth cues
→Avoids crawling over deep
side of
visual cliff
→Perceives patterns (such as human walking
movements and facial expressions of emotion) as
meaningful wholes
10-12
months
→Can extract pattern information in the absence of a
full image (from a moving light or partial picture)

3. GROSS AND FINE MOTOR DEVELOPMENT IN THE FIRST TWO YEARS
Motor Skill Average Age Achieved Age Range in Which 90% of Infants Achieve
the Skill
When held upright, holds head erect and steady 6 weeks 3 weeks–4 months
When prone, lifts self by arms 2 months 3 weeks–4 months
Rolls from side to back 2 months 3 weeks–5 months
Grasps cube 3 months, 3 weeks 2–7 months
Rolls from back to side 41⁄2 months 2–7 months
Sits alone 7 months 5–9 months
Crawls 7 months 5–11 months
Pulls to stand 8 months 5–12 months
Plays pat-a-cake 9 months, 3 weeks 7–15 months
Stands alone 11 months 9–16 months
Walks alone 11 months, 3 weeks 9–17 months
Builds tower of two cubes 11 months, 3 weeks 10–19 months
Scribbles vigorously 14 months 10–21 months
Walks up stairs with help 16 months 12–23 months
Jumps in place 23 months, 2 weeks 17–30 months
Walks on tiptoe 25 months 16–30 months