What is child development?

Child development is the process during which your baby is able to learn and grow through to adolescence. During the first few years of your child’s life, they are developing new skills and abilities at an incredibly fast rate. Parents with a basic knowledge of child development will know that there are child milestones for them to achieve.

Physical development

Physical development is sectioned into two areas, gross motor skills and fine motor skills. Gross motor skills are the use of large muscles, such as the movements made with arms and legs. This can be infants learning to crawl or walk and children learning to jump or skip. Fine motor skills are the use of smaller muscles, like the ones found in your fingers. Your baby will learn how to hold objects in their hand and older children will learn how to manipulate a paintbrush or pick up small objects.

Social and emotional development

The development of babies' social skills start at just a few weeks old when they smile and babble at their parents, as they get older they begin to make friends and learn to take turns. Your children’s emotional skills will develop when they learn to do things on their own, such as dressing themselves or potty training.

Intellectual/cognitive development

Early brain development is largely focused on coordinating sensory information with motor experiences, which allows your child’s cognitive skills to develop, helping them to solve problems and think for themselves. As your child develops intellectually, they will begin to think creatively and link the past with the present when solving problems. Your baby develops their cognitive skills when they explore the environment around them and learns how to answer simple maths questions when they get older.

Speech and language development

From a young age, your child begins to understand the language used around them and develops the ability to speak as they get older. The babbles your baby makes in response to your voice is your baby learning how to have a conversation - this is the first signs of your baby’s language development. All children learn to speak at different stages of their development as toddlers. This is because of the amount of language they are exposed to as they grow. The older child's speech ability develops while constructing sentences and reading short books aloud. There is a lot of parenting information available on the internet to help guide you through to child development milestones, as well as activities to do with your child and guides to show you what you can do to aid your child’s development.