- Babies are born with basic sensory abilities that develop rapidly in the first months of life, including vision, hearing, taste, smell, and touch. - By 2 months, babies can see in color and focus at varying distances, their peripheral vision has more than doubled from birth, and they can discern differences in sounds as subtle as "bah" vs. "pah" through habituation experiments. - Babies show preferences for visual stimuli like faces and complex patterns from an early age, and can recognize and orient towards their mother's unique scent within their first weeks.

1. SENSORY DEVELOPMENT