ABSTRACT
For many milestones in a young child’s development, there seems to be a natural progression of learning and doing. For walking, an infant first learns to flip over onto his or her belly, then crawls, then stands up holding on to the railings on a crib, and eventually tumbles a few steps into an adult’s open arms. For talking, a toddler starts by noticing and imitating sounds, then he or she connects the sounds with meaning and uses simple words, then two or more words are strung together into simple sentences and sentences into bigger ideas. For socialization and interaction, young children begin by smiling and receiving smiles back, looking and pointing when someone else looks and points, and eventually to tireless repetitions of give and take. Because such progressions seem so logical and natural, parents can almost intuitively grow to know how to support their children’s development. After all, we were all children once-we went through the same progressions, we observed other children going through these same phases, and we learned how to learn.
