Autonomy in Child Development
By nine months, your child has acquired a foundation of skills across five different areas. From the beginning, these skills have not developed in isolation but in synchrony. This simultaneous development will continue as the skills in one area use those of another to advantage. Thus, your child’s learning will increase in both quantity and quality. More complex skills will emerge and sometimes apparently over night. Your child’s distinct personality will appear; her unique approach to live will begin to develop. Because observational learning is emerging for your child, you as a model will become more important.
Developmental Milestones Categories
During this time, months 9-12, changes in individual categories of development (cognitive, language, social/emotional, and motor) won’t be as distinct as they were in the previous months. That’s because the emerging skills are becoming integrated with each other, and this integration produces more complex responses to the child’s environment. The word, integration, means your child’s skills are working together. Your child will begin to access more aspects of his environment, and that environment will demand more integrated responses from him.
Infant Cognitive Developmental Milestones
Cognition involves the development of categories, and we usually think of categories as abstract things. But in the first year, categories are very much tied to the material world. Your child still thinks with objects and will do so for several more years. However, in the first year your child is constructing the foundation for what will eventually become abstract.
Your child will develop two interests: watching things fall and looking for hidden things. When learning to handle objects, your child threw objects on the floor. Your baby now takes that skill a step further and develops an interest in watching them fall. The nine month old child is developing a concept and awareness of space. In earlier months, your child would throw objects without caring much where they went. To the six-month-old child thrown objects simply disappear. She doesn’t wonder where they went. But at 9 months, she becomes interested in where the object disappeared. Your child is experiencing the concepts of up and down. The falling of objects is a new way for your child to experience her world, and this new experience is very exciting.
Your child has learned that when an object disappears it doesn’t just vanish, it goes somewhere. At this age your child is developing some object concepts, and you can see this when she looks for objects that disappear behind another one. This is an enormous change in your baby’s cognition. Some foundational categories are developing upon which your child will construct his knowledge of the world in later years.
In her toy play, she will be exploring how objects go behind and in front of other objects. Your baby will be interested in how objects go into a box; how a box constrains objects and how objects fill up a box. These movements all represent categories at a basic level. Helping your child explore them with his toys will enrich the experiential foundations of his knowledge. At nine months, your child’s learning is rooted in his action upon his environment.
Your baby will need a defined space in the house for these explorations. If you simply turn your child loose in the house, he will take it apart. Your baby is not throwing everything in the floor because that is what babies do but because that is how your baby is learning and developing. Thus, provide your baby a place with space and objects for that learning and development to occur under your guidance.
Social Emotional Milestones Early Childhood
At this stage, your child has the social awareness of familiar and unfamiliar people. With this awareness of familiar others he will begin to prefer people with whom he has had experience and when around those with whom he has had no experience will become clingy. He is not yet afraid of strangers but is definitely uncomfortable around them. Your child’s social world is composed of those people who are consistently in his daily life. Allow this clinginess at this time. When your child seeks you in social situations, provide her with a reassurance that you are there for her through touch and holding. She is developing her social world and needs to know you are still at the center of it.
Language Development Milestones Infants
The language skills that develop during these months are very foundational for your child’s development. Three skills that will emerge in your child’s repertoire are waving bye, saying some words, and understanding the meaning of “no.” These are skills that indicate your child’s development of language and speech are on track. Understanding the meaning of “no” is particularly important as your child is recognizing that words have meanings, not just associations with events. A meaning is different than an association. For example, your child may associate your appearance at daycare in the afternoon with going home. However, the appearance of you does not mean “go home.” The association will apply only to daycare in the afternoon. The words, “go home,” will indicate to your child that she is going home anywhere they occur. Your child does not yet have this understanding. The meaning of the words is independent of all situations in which they occur, whereas, their associations are dependent upon the situations in which they occur. This is the power of language over associations.
Adults usually attribute meaning to children’s vocalizations and gestures when they are actually only associations. The gesture of waving bye is based more on association with the act of leaving than a meaning. Gestures are important in your child’s language development, because meaning evolves from gestures. The gesture of pointing is a very important gesture for your child as it involves directing your attention to objects and is associated with many different objects. With the gesture of pointing, your child is learning to coordinate his attention with yours. This coordination is a basic skill of communication. Your child learns these basic communication skills through the imitation of your speech and gestures. Thus, when you are talking to your baby, use gestures and respond to any attempt by your child to say sounds. Singing to your child is a good way to help your child learn these early skills, because the rhythm and phrasing of songs helps your child organize the speech sounds. Also, songs use repetition of words.
Movement Development Milestones
Before your child learns to walk, he will have to learn to balance his body and support himself in an upright position. For the first time in her life, you will not be physically supporting your baby. For your child, this is a totally new experience. Standing up involves the experience of the real possibility of falling. An infant’s world gets a little dangerous but also exciting in a way it hasn’t been to date. The ability to stand erect is important for walking, and an equally important skill is crawling. If your baby is to walk, he must learn to coordinate his legs as well as balance himself. These two skills are complex, and you should give your child opportunities to overlearn them. That means, let your child do a lot of crawling. Your child will likely soon learn to pull herself up using the help of furniture. Give your child liberty to crawl. She will get into things; that is natural and healthy. As your baby achieves more physical independence, your house won’t be quite as ordered and neat as it used to be. These are the signs of a house where a child is free to grow.
Infant Development Activities
One of the most important characteristics that your child has acquired in this phase is increased physical independence. With her ability to crawl, she gains access to many things that were out of her reach. You no longer have to bring her world to her. Now, her world will start to grow as she begins to explore it. She will no longer be satisfied with merely seeing things. She will want to touch, taste, hear, and smell things. How things fall apart will fascinate her. You will also notice her attention span is increasing. Her brain is hungry for new experiences and just about everything is a new experience for him. Let your child enjoy his new movement skills. Provide him with objects that provide different sounds, smells, and textures, You will need to be aware of the cleanliness of her toys, as everything will go into her mouth. That is ok. This is a phase in your child’s life when you should be saying, “Yes,” to your baby. Your baby will need your participation to explore his environment. You will need to set up things to make them more accessible to him. Help your baby’s brain grow by flooding it with new experiences. Avoid getting into a routine of the same toys and the same interactions every day. Your baby responds to the new in her life at this stage of her development.