Developmental Milestones
What are developmental milestones?
Children learn more during their first 5 years than at any other time of their life. While all babies grow and develop at different rates, tracking how they reach 'milestones' along the way is one method to assess their progress.
Developmental milestones are the essential abilities such as moving, seeing, hearing, communicating and interacting with other people that babies achieve as they begin to engage with the world.
Development usually happens in the same order in most babies and children, but they typically meet different milestones at different ages. Tracking their milestones is a useful guide to whether they are developing as expected.
Child and maternal health nurses and doctors will check whether babies and children are reaching some of the following types of milestone:
physical: these milestones include large body movements, such as sitting and walking, and small body movements like controlling their hands, eating and sleeping, reflexes, vision and other physical abilities
social: how they react to other people around them, including through play and communication
emotional: how well they are bonding with other people, whether they are happy or not
cognitive: their learning, how their senses are working, and how they are engaging with the world
language: these include hearing, making sounds and understanding sounds
(From the Health Direct Website)