Assessment of child development

There are milestones at each stage of development, which about 95% of children reach in a similar period of time. They serve as an objective assessment of the child’s development and, if not met, can draw attention to a possible developmental delay at an early stage. The so-called U-examinations, which are carried out by the pediatrician, serve for observation and early detection.

Up to the age of six there are ten examination appointments. The first one takes place immediately after birth, while the subsequent ones take place at intervals of months and finally of years. The U9 in the sixth year of life is followed by the U10 and U11 until the 10th and the J1 and J2 until the 17th year of life.

(see: U11- examination). The first eleven check-ups are covered by the health insurance. Already in the first three months of life, a child learns certain skills that allow him to perform his first movements and to get in contact with the environment.

Motor functions such as lifting the head or leaning on the forearms are performed from the prone position. Interesting objects are actively perceived. The child tries not to lose them out of the corner of his eye by turning his head.It returns the smiles of strangers and familiar people.

After half a year, the child grabs objects with its hand and lets them move from the right hand to the left hand and vice versa. If the child is helped into a sitting position, he or she can hold the head independently and bend the arms reflectively. The child is attentive to its surroundings.

Caressing and responding to it elicits positive reactions. Carrying the baby correctly during this time is also important for its development. In the ninth month, the child should be able to sit without problems to a large extent.

The child’s curiosity can be seen in the in-depth examination of objects that are grasped with all the senses. Reference persons and strangers are consciously recognized by the child. At the end of the first year of life, motor development is so far advanced that the child can pull himself/herself into a standing position on solid objects and perform coordinated finger movements.

He begins to actively seek contact with peers and searches for things that have been hidden from his eyes. In the first half of the second year of life, the child succeeds not only in standing but also in walking with support. During the first attempts at walking, the baby’s bow legs, which are physiological at this stage of development, can help to give the gait more stability.

Objects are carefully examined and tried out while playing. Simple games involving melodies, rhymes or movement are fun for the child. After 18 months, the child can stand and walk freely.

Not only can he or she follow simple instructions, but also some established rules. The playing behavior is more mature, which can be seen, for example, in the first role plays. At the end of the second year of life, the child is able to run and perform precise motor movements, like unpacking a candy.

The playing behavior also becomes more independent, the role plays more mature. In the third year of life, the child has the ability to jump safely down from a small heel and can perform increasingly precise movements with his fingers. He draws his first pictures and likes to put himself in the shoes of other people while playing.

In interaction with the parents, he tries to imitate their behavior and actions. At the end of the fourth year of life, the child rides safely on a bobby-car or tricycle. The correct position of a pen, increasingly complex role-playing and W questions (Who?

How? Where? What?)

are further milestones in development. The child is able to concentrate on certain things and shows social behavior when interacting with other children. In the fifth year of life, the child is able to climb stairs in a coordinated manner and use scissors sensibly when doing handicrafts.

The interaction with other children increases. While playing, the roles become more detailed, games in which things are built become more frequent. By the age of six a child should have the motor skills to dress and undress independently, stand on one leg for a few seconds and be able to throw and catch a ball.

How safely he or she can coordinate these skills varies from child to child. In the child’s perception, the need to understand the surrounding environment grows. It seeks its own approaches to explanation.

In this section, interaction with other children includes integration into a group and making compromises. The child attends school and learns further social skills and grows up. Puberty can begin from the age of 8.

This becomes noticeable, for example, through the beginning of pubic hair and underarm hair. The child’s language development depends not only on sufficient hearing but also on numerous external factors and develops parallel to the acquisition of social and emotional skills. In the first months of life, the child expresses itself primarily through crying, thus conveying certain needs.

The first, so-called babbling phase begins between the 2nd and 3rd month. The child learns the motor basics of speech by producing cooing and babbling sounds. In the second babble phase from the 4th to 7th month, the child hangs individual syllables one after the other and imitates individual vowels.

In the 8th to 12th month, the child can increasingly understand language and uses first words such as “mom” and “dad”. In the course of the second year of life, the child first speaks one-word sentences, which usually refer to the respective situation, and later two-word sentences. Calls are also increasingly understood and followed.

By then, the vocabulary consists of about 50 words.Between the ages of 2 and 3, the child adopts more and more words, builds sentences of three words and incorporates the word “I” into its language. The question phase is between the 3rd and 4th year of life. The child also uses more and more subordinate clauses. As the child progresses, the length of the sentence increases, as does the vocabulary. As the child enters school age, he or she can tell stories that he or she has heard before and is grammatically more confident.