ABSTRACT
This chapter explores just some of the developmental milestones that occur in infants and young children up until five or six years of age. Young children rapidly become assertive individuals who verbalize their needs and wishes. While cultural dynamics and environmental conditions affect child development, timelines in the following areas are perhaps best understood through medical and similar models. Children who came from families of lower socioeconomic status had more difficulty in developing all of the tasks than children from higher-income families. This suggests that the environmental context may influence the rate of speech development. Language development is universal, meaning that children across the globe tend to reach various milestones at roughly the same time. For this reason, many psychologists argue that there is a biological basis of language. A more balanced view of language development can be found somewhere between biologically and behaviorally centered views.
