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Expectations for Cognitive Development
Birth to 3 months
- Attends to faces/visually follows moving object
- Awareness of sounds
- Brings hands and objects to mouth
3-6 Months
- Emerging cause-effect play (shakes rattle or bats at toys to “cause an effect”)
- Explores all aspects of objects
- Bangs objects on surface or together
6-9 months
- Simple motor play continues (pushing, pulling, shaking, banging)
- Emerging object permanence (finds a partially hidden object)
- Participates in simple social games, plays peek-a-boo
9-12 months
- Container play (takes things out/puts things into container)
- Finds completely hidden objects
- Demonstrates functional use of objects (brings spoon to mouth and phone to ear)
12-18 months
- Pretend play begins-first on self
- Trial-and-error skills (puzzles, shape sorters, stacking)
- Combines related objects
- Imitates new movements (participates more in social games)
18-24 months
- Pretend play becomes more complex
- More mobile, explores environment and enjoys physical play
- Emerging matching skills
30-36 months
- Matching and sorting skills
- Concepts emerging (‘big’ vs. ‘little,’ etc.)
3-4 years
- Colors, numbers, letters, shapes
- Very interested in play with peers, rules during play begin to emerge
- Counts objects/recognizes letters
4-5 years
- Play with peers becomes more structured, rules and roles
- Matches symbols (letters and numbers)
- Retells facts from familiar story