Infant Development

Motor (Gross and Fine) Development for First Quarter (0-3 Months)

Gross Motor:

Forearm support in prone, head unsustain at 45 deg.

Midline head and hands in supine, hip flexed to 90 deg.

In support sitting, lifts head in midline, extension of cervical spine

Head aligned with body in dependent sitting

Fine Motor:

Hands open consistently

Brings hands to mouth

Holds a toy when placed in hand for 1 minute

Baby grabs at clothes

Batting at objects

Perceptual-Cognitive Development for First Quarter (0-3 Months)

Visual:

Improving color, depth, and size perception

Acuity 20/100

Coordinates vocalizing, looking, and body movements during interaction with caregiver

Cognition:

Piaget’s sensorimotor substage 2 (primary circular reaction)

Fixates on location of anticipated stimulus

Object permanence and causality

Social-Emotional Development for First Quarter (0-3 Months)

Playing with fingers, hands, and toes

Attachment more focused on primary caregiver at 2 months

Emotion:

Contentment

Interest

Distress

Appearance of primary emotions of joy, sadness, disgust, and possibly anger

Social smiling at 2 months

Language:

Body language and crying

Cooing, squealing, and laughing

Imitates vowel sounds

Recognition of universal sounds

Motor (Gross, Oral, and Fine) Development for Second Quarter (4-6 Months)

Gross Motor:

Rolls from prone to supine

Pushes up with straight arms in prone

Brief sitting with UE support

Head sustained at 45 and 90 deg.

Oral Motor:

More active sucking and use of lips to hold nipple

Liquid loss from lip corners

Solids with up/down jaw movements

Fine Motor:

Grabs toy, holds it, shakes it or brings it to mouth for at least 1 minute

Picks up toy with one hand, holds it in their palm

Reaches or grabs toy with both hands

Reaches for small objects the size of a Cheerio

Attempts to grab small objects using raking motion with all fingers except the thumb

Perceptual-Cognitive Development for Second Quarter (4-6 Months)

Piaget’s sensorimotor sub-stage 3 (secondary circular reactions)

Selective attention developing, infant habituate to stimulus

Development of Intermodal Perception:

Preference for synchronized visual and auditory information

Focus visually on pacifier mouthed but no seen

Social-Emotional Development for Second Quarter (4-6 Months)

Distinguishes between strangers and familiar individuals but responsive to strangers

Prefer primary care giver

Emotion:

Primary emotion of surprise appears and possibly fear

Language:

Babbling begins at 6 months

Sound recognition begins to be limited to parent’s language

Motor (Gross, Oral, and Fine) Development for Third Quarter (7-9 Months)

Gross Motor:

Rolling supine to prone with segmentation

Gets to a sitting position independently

Sits without support - sustained at 8 months

Crawling

Oral Motor:

No liquid loss, long sequences coordinated sucking-swallow-breathing during feedings

Anticipate spoon, moves lips toward spoon

Free use of tongue

Up and down chewing movements

Teething and sucking thumb

Fine Motor:

Grabs object with one hand

Holds toy with tips of fingers rather than in palm of hand

Successfully grabs small object (Cheerio) using raking motion

Grabs small object with thumb and index finer with support of a surface (radial digital grasp)

Able to successfully grab a string

Able to place toy on surface without dropping it

Perceptual-Cognitive Development for Third Quarter (7-9 Months)

Touch sensation can be localized

Transition into Paiget’s sensorimotor sub-stage 4

Coordination of vision and sense of touch or hand-eye coordination

Behavior is intentional, combing of schema

Enjoys playing peek-a-boo, so-big, and patty-cake

Social-Emotional Development for Third Quarter (7-9 Months)

Emotion:

May demonstrate stranger anxiety

Joy, surprise, sadness, disgust, anger, and fear

Language:

Distinguish boundaries between words in verbal speech

First indication of understanding of words at 8 months

Use gestures to communicate needs and wants at 8 months

Motor (Gross, Oral, and Fine) Development for Fourth Quarter (10-12 Months)

Gross Motor:

Pulls to stand

Cruising along furniture

Reaching outside BOS while quadruped

Creeping

Abdominal-thoracic breathing pattern developing, most active when crying

Oral Motor:

Begin to wean from bottle

Use controlled, sustained bite on soft cookie

Chewing with mixture of up/down and diagonal patterns

Introduction of finger food

Fine Motor:

Developing bimanual dexterity

Demonstrate early hand preference - if this occurs early (roughly 6 months = most likely child with CP)

Grab small object with isolated control of thumb and index finger (pincer grasp)

Throw a ball with forward arm motion

Assist with turning pages

Perceptual-Cognitive Development for Fourth Quarter (10-12 Months)

According to some sources, infant has achieved 20/20 acuity

Infants slow to habituate to stimulus (“long-lookers”) have poorer memories than infants who habituate more quickly (“short-lookers”)

Follows one-step instructions “wave bye-bye”

Social-Emotional Development for Fourth Quarter (10-12 Months)

Emotion:

Stranger anxiety intensifies

Language:

Receptive language should include 50 words including the word “no”

Consistently using gestures to communicate

May use first words

Beginning to use jargon