Children's Cognitive and Behavioral Milestones

Children's Cognitive and Behavioral Milestones Additional and maybe the most fascinating aspect of the physical examination assessment comes in the area of Cognitive and Behavioral Development. Cognitive development is a learning development as the baby develops its intellect. Behavioral development is probably the most exiting thing for parents because it involves a lot of their interaction. If you look at behavioral development, a child in the first month of age is really just a reflexive child sucking, swallowing, grasping etcetera. By the second stage which is one to four months, they’re beginning to show anticipation for feeding. They become aware of their surroundings. They develop some indicatives of memory and they have no separation anxiety however during this time. But by four to eight months, separation anxiety occurs. They search for objects that have fallen. They’re able to tolerate some frustration and some delayed gratification and they’re mere image is a mere of play begin. They imitate sounds. They imitate gestures at this age. This is truly an exciting age for kids. And by nine or 12 months, they actively search for hidden objects. They now have knowledge of gesture and the meanings of gestures. And they can put objects in containers. Cognitive function is a little bit more difficult to explain but this basically begins at the one month period where the child is extremely self-centered being. Then moving to one to four months where they start to have voluntary activity, they begin to recognize casualty, they recognize temporal space of time, they begin to separate themselves for others. By four to eight months, they’re now able to have object permanent as it’s called which is very important at that time. By 12 months, they can distinguish end products for the means that cause them. They also begin the association of symbols at 12 months which is highly important than also pointing for language etcetera development. These two fascinating aspects of the infant growth are in part of any physical exam, any evaluation that the child receives. They require cooperation by the parents to express what exactly they’ve observed as well as the doctor being aware of asking about them and including them in the evaluation. This is another aspect to what you should expect from your developmental evaluations as you go to your physician.