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Chapter 4: Physical Development in Infancy and Toddlerhood

Chapter 5: Cognitive Development in Infancy and Toddlerhood

Chapter 6: Socioemotional Development in Infancy and Toddlerhood

The most dramatic developments in the lifespan occur in infancy. In addition to tripling their weight during the first year of life, infants progress through an orderly series of motor milestones that transforms them from newborns unable to lift their heads to babies able to roll over, sit up, crawl, and, at about a year of age, walk.

As infants practice their motor skills, they explore their environment, build their understanding of phenomena, and adapt to the world around them. Cognitive changes are supported by brain development. A multitude of new connections among brain cells are created and pruned in response to experience. Naturally primed to learn language, infants discriminate speech sounds from birth and progress steadily from gurgles and coos, to speech-like babbling, to first words.

Warm, sensitive, and responsive interactions with caregivers foster close and secure attachment bonds. Caregivers help infants learn to understand and regulate their emotions. In turn, infants influence their caregivers by smiling, reaching, and crawling to them. Infants’ growing ability to express their thoughts and emotions advances parent–child communication and aids in sustaining a secure emotional base that supports their exploration of the world and their physical, cognitive, and socioemotional development.

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