Kids' Health

It is joyous to watch your child grow, and to bond and engage in “oohs and ahhs” with them. Babies developing into toddlers can make for great memory-making moments.

    But as much fun as this experience can be, this is also a critical time in your child’s development. Parents must monitor their child to assure they are developing age-appropriate skills – referred to as developmental milestones.

    Developmental milestones are a set of functional skills or age-specific tasks that most children can do at a certain age range. Each milestone has an age level, but the actual age when a normally developing child reaches that milestone varies slightly.

Speech and language development: It’s a dynamic process
    “Babbling” and other sorts of expressive language from your baby is a good sign. Make sure it doesn’t stop there. Speech and language delays are the leading developmental concern for parents of children younger than 5 years. Language and speech problems can exist together or separately. Depending on their diagnosis, simple language enrichment sessions with a recommended specialist may help these children catch up. In other cases, a language delay may indicate a problem that will require more directed intervention by a health or education professional, or both.

Your child should express the following:
> Babbling with inflection, and pointing or gesturing by 12-15 months of age
> Single words by 16 months
> Two-word, spontaneous phrases by 24 months

Your child’s intellectual development: A time to explore!
    Major developments in the brain occur in the early stages of your child’s life. Cognitive development involves thinking skills, such as learning, understanding, problem-solving, reasoning and remembering. Babies are aware of their surroundings and are interested in exploring them. They are busy gathering and organizing knowledge about their world.

By 12 months of age, your child should:
> Explore objects in many different ways (shaking, banging, throwing, dropping)
> Look at the right picture when the image is named
> Imitate gestures

A developmental delay: What’s next?
    If you suspect a developmental delay, it is important to discuss your concerns with your pediatrician. If your child’s doctor finds anything that may be of concern, they’ll refer you to a specialist (speech-language pathologist, psychologist, neurologist or developmental-behavioral pediatrician) for a full developmental evaluation. Early identification of developmental problems leads to intervention and family assistance at a young age, when chances for improvement may be best.

What all children need
    Talk to your baby and young child – they enjoy it. Children must first receive language before they are able to express themselves with language.
> Provide running commentary as you perform your daily activities
> Sing nursery rhymes (rhyming is an important pre-literacy skill)
> Enjoy being silly with your child (e.g., when you’re driving in the car, make funny sounds, such as “vroom” goes the fire truck!)
> Read to your child beginning at 6 months of age. Make it a part of every day
    Language, speech and cognitive development are a few of the milestones you can expect from your child. To learn more about developmental milestones, talk to your child’s pediatrician. m

    Dr. Geeta Grover is a pediatrician at Children’s Hospital of Orange County (CHOC). For more information about CHOC or to find a CHOC physician, visit choc.org.