ABSTRACT

In the normal course of events, providing there are no extreme disabling factors in either the child or the child’s environment, the 2-year-old will be able to move independently (most will be walking), to feed himself (if somewhat messily), and to handle objects with some skill. He will be able to communicate with others, having developed a wide range of verbal and non-verbal signals. The size of the vocabulary and the level of language vary enormously from child to child at this stage, but most will have acquired some degree of intelligible speech, and some will be using sentences in their conversation. Having acquired mobility, a degree of basic competency and the ability to communicate with others, the child is now ready to move out beyond the home, and to widen his horizons on all fronts. This does not mean that up to the age of 2 children should be locked inside their homes, having contact only with the immediate family. Processes of growth are always gradual. The child’s world will have been expanding all the time. But it is about this age that far more positive moves out into the community are made, by the child himself rather than as an appendage to the parent. Increasingly, the child will be meeting experiences for himself, on his own terms, undiluted-so to speak-by the parent protection systems. Of course, careful supervision and mediation by the caretaker will be essential and will continue for some time to come. But more and more of the child’s encounters will come to him direct.