1. Infants Learn to Learn
From birth up until about 2 years of age, infants learn how to understand and interact with their environments and other people. By the end of this intellectual developmental stage, your child should be able to follow simple directions, point to pictures of objects or people in a book, point to body parts when prompted, know the difference between "you" and "me" and follow a story when you read aloud. During this time, your child will probably begin exploring his environment and modeling the behavior of others. The concept of object permanence, that objects still exist even when out of sight, also becomes clear.
2. Toddlers: Beginnings of Comprehension
Between ages 2 and 3, children experience significant intellectual development. By the end of this period, your child should understand time in terms of "yesterday," "tomorrow," "now," "soon" and "later." Memory and attention span also expand significantly. Your child should display enough cognitive awareness of objects in his environment to match like objects with like objects, objects with their pictures and objects with related objects (like a knife and a fork). You should notice your child spending more time staring at objects and situations while trying to "figure them out."
3. Preschoolers: Knowledge and Curiosity
Between ages of 3 and 5, the preschool years, a child begins to absorb and retain knowledge. During this time, most children learn to count, identify different colors and shapes and pick out the letters of the alphabet. Curiosity and imagination become important, and most kids will take an interest in what comes next in a story and enjoy playing make-believe. Increased cognitive skills are also demonstrated in improved language comprehension and application. Your child should be able to follow multi-step directions and answer simple questions. She should demonstrate an understanding of past tense, plurality and possession by using the right words in sentences. By the end of this developmental period, you should be able to understand almost everything your child says.
4. Kindergarteners: Understanding Everyday Concepts
By the time your child starts grade school, she should understand most everyday concepts. For example, she should be able to demonstrate how time relates to a schedule by saying or understanding a phrase like, "School starts at 8 o'clock." Additionally, she should be able to sort things according to serial order and classification. By this age, most children understand the use of money and how to count it. The desire to learn more is obvious by the many questions they ask about practically anything. Some children may be able to read simple books by this age, but others will not learn this skill until the first grade.
