10/08/2020 Reading time: 5 min 4062 0
Babies are growing rapidly. It seemed like only recently a small, squeaking bundle appeared in the house, and it’s hard for him to even focus his eyes, and now he’s already humming, looking around with interest and getting ready to celebrate his first birthday. 11–12 months is the age when the child begins to carefully try to walk with support or independently, he continues to cut his teeth, and he actively learns about the world around him. This period, which has come so quickly, causes natural anxiety in parents: what should a child be able to do in a year, is he developing normally. It’s worth saying right away that all children are individual, and you shouldn’t compare your baby with others, it’s better to focus on medical criteria.
Movements
During this time, the baby learned to roll over, crawl, sit and stand freely on his own - at least for a few seconds. He also made attempts to walk and, perhaps, is already walking, holding your hand. Some babies can already climb a small step at one year!
During the year, active cognitive activity is formed: by moving, the baby masters space, and also studies objects by grabbing them with his hands.
Psycho-emotional development of a child at 1 year old
The baby is very curious, carefully looks at the behavior of adults and tries to copy it. It is important to remember this when parenting: even if the child does not listen to you, he will definitely adopt your behavior. The child is very interested in things that fold and come apart, so he may be interested in cubes, pyramids, and putting them together into structures. Some people like to leaf through books, hide and look for objects. Kids at this age already show a wide range of emotions; their vocabulary includes up to 10–15 simple words, they recognize different animals and remember the names of their parents. A one-year-old child is able to understand a simple instruction: “come”, “give”. He begins to become interested in games with a story. Long-term memory also improves: the baby remembers what happened a few days ago. He recognizes animals and different objects, and can learn to use some of them, for example, open a cabinet.
Games
A one-year-old baby enjoys playing with many toys on his own: he rolls a large ball back and forth, pulls objects on a string, inserts a small glass into a larger glass, and even tries to draw with a pencil himself!
When assessing the skills acquired by a baby during the first year of life, you need to take into account his temperament and other characteristics, because every child is unique.
The material was prepared based on T.V. KUSTOVA et al. ASSESSMENT OF PSYCHOMOTOR DEVELOPMENT OF AN EARLY CHILD: WHAT A PEDIATRIC SHOULD KNOW. MEDICAL COUNCIL • No. 11, 2018
Features of child development at 1 year
Compared to previous months, the baby becomes much more active and inquisitive. Parents begin to notice this after the first half of the year, but by the age of one year the child becomes even more intelligent and curious. Its weight is approximately three times greater than at birth, and on average is 10–12 kg, and such children are about 72–77 cm tall. Much depends on genetics, on how quickly the baby’s parents grew. The main thing is that the ratio of height and weight is organic, for example, a tall child weighs more. If the baby slightly does not fit into the criteria, there is no reason to worry, even if someone you know has a child at that age that looks a little different. Every baby is unique.
Passive and active vocabulary
During this period, attention is drawn to such a characteristic feature as imitation of the words of adults. The baby repeats not only familiar words, but also previously unknown ones. These could be words addressed to the child, or words that he heard from others. Such active imitation can be noticed already from 1 year 5 months. Here it is important not to coo with children, faking your speech in “childish” language, but to give an example of the correct pronunciation of words.
Starting from the first year of life, the understanding of words grows; the baby is familiar with the names of objects in his immediate environment, the names of objects, animals and other objects that are most often shown to him in pictures in children's books, on the street. The baby loves to look at bright colored book illustrations. Adults should maintain this interest by choosing clear pictures.
When commenting on illustrations to a child, you need to speak precisely, in simple words, try to denote the object with one, constant word, so that the meaning of the picture is not lost in the stream of speech of an adult. For example, while the word monkey is used to describe monkeys and gorilla.
By the age of one and a half years, a child’s active vocabulary is 20–30 words; its sound composition is still simple. Thanks to the desire to imitate the speech of adults, by the end of the second year the baby increases the number of spoken words tenfold. Speech is dominated by nouns, but there are also verbs (2-3 times less of them) and adverbs (there, here, here).
Occasionally, by the age of two, the use of adjectives can be found in children's speech; this feature will continue to persist into early preschool age. Personal pronouns are often found in a child’s speech and are easily used (I, you, he, she).
First generalizations
Gradually, the baby establishes a connection not only between a specific object and a word, but also between other similar objects and this word. How does this happen?
Here, for example, is an experiment that was conducted by psychologists with young children.
The experiment involved two groups of children aged from 1 year to one year and 3 months. In the first group, each child for two months, almost every day, was shown an unfamiliar object - a book - 10 times for five seconds and said: “Book! Book!" Each time the children turned their gaze and turned their heads towards the object. During the observation period, this reaction was repeated 500 times.
With the children of the second group, one book was also used, but the child, under the guidance of an adult, performed various actions with it. “Here is a book!”, “Open the book!”, “Close the book!” etc. The kids were given only 20 different commands; each of them included the word “book”, and each required a specific motor response. These motor reactions were repeated only 50 times during the entire observation period.
Control tests were then carried out in both groups. During these tests, many different objects were laid out in front of the child: cubes, dolls, toy animals, several books that differed in size, thickness, cover color, etc. The adult addressed the child with the words: “Give me the book!” It was important to find out which book the child would choose. Only the one he saw before, or any other, uniting the objects with the concept of “book”? Children from the first group took only one book - the one they had seen during the previous two months - and gave it to the experimenter. When they were asked to take another book, they either took the first object they came across (it could be a doll, a hare, etc.) or did nothing. This means that for the children of this group the word “book” remained the name of one specific object and did not acquire a general meaning. So a large number of repetitions, even with the simultaneous presentation of the corresponding object, does not yet contribute to the development of generalization.
And therefore, teach your baby to act with various objects, be sure to name these actions out loud. You can bring the same book, show it to the doll, open it, close it, leaf through it, put it on a chair, find an interesting picture in it, etc. Contact your baby more often with various simple requests. He will be very happy to help you, and at the same time he will enrich his vocabulary and gain the first experience of generalization.
Tactics of your actions
As before, the main thing is to communicate with your baby! Having caught his interested glance or pointing gesture, name the objects that surround you and comment on your actions. Don’t be shy about talking out loud and on the street - it’s very important for your baby to hear from you what’s happening in the sandbox, where passers-by are rushing, and what color that beautiful aunt’s dress is.
Try to ensure that your comments do not remain only sound, but have some kind of reinforcement in bodily sensations and movement. The baby will remember the word “tree” much better if he touches the rough bark with his palm, the word “handkerchief” - when he tries to tie a scarf on a doll, the word “bell” - if he rings a real bell.
Try to “introduce” a new word to your child in various combinations with other words and objects. For example, when showing milk, show what it looks like in a glass or in a pan in which you are going to cook porridge. Comment on your actions: “Mom pours milk into a glass”, “white milk, delicious”, “drink milk”, etc.
It is useful to consider and discuss not only various objects, but also pictures with their images. After all, by this age, children are already quite good at identifying an object and its image. Compare real things with pictures. What do they have in common and how do they differ? For example, if you see a photograph of a girl in a red hat in a magazine, find your baby’s hat and compare: “The girl has a hat, and Alyosha has a hat. The girl’s hat is red, and Alyosha’s is yellow,” etc.
Physiological achievements of a one-year-old child
Each child is a unique individual who grows and develops only in accordance with his biological clock. However, parents still need to monitor its growth. They should find out in advance what a child can do at 1 year old, and if obvious deviations are detected, contact specialists.
1. Weight and height
. By 12 months, the baby's weight is three times its birth weight. But at the same time, its growth rate is slowing down. If in the first three months the baby could gain weight by kilograms, now the increase can be a maximum of 0.5 kg. It is normal if the difference in weight between 11 and 12 months is no more than 350 g, and in height – up to 1.5 cm.
2. Head and chest circumference
. The circumference of the head and chest increases by about 0.5 cm over the period from 11 to 12 months.
3. Teeth
. According to generally accepted standards, by the age of one year a child should have 8 baby teeth. However, in reality these parameters are very vague. There is no need to sound the alarm if by this moment the baby has only a couple or, conversely, 12-13 teeth. You should seek advice if no teeth have erupted in 52 weeks. To facilitate the process, you can use special toys and teethers. This will relieve the itching and help calm the baby.
4. Legs
. In one-year-old children, as a rule, the feet are still flat, and their arches are barely noticeable. In babies who have just begun to walk independently, fatty pads can be found on their feet. Subsequently they will become invisible. Also, with age, the feet will become curved.
These parameters depend on the physiological characteristics of a particular child. There is not a single universal indicator by which one can accurately determine what children should be able to do by 12 months. The task of parents is only to focus on approximate data.
Features of the development of girls at 1 year
Psychologically, boys and girls at this age are still very similar. They are interested in balls and pyramids, games with a plot, toys with which they can interact in different ways. Therefore, you should not limit your child to, say, dolls if it is a girl. There are no significant differences in the weight and height of boys and girls at this age. But the psychomotor and mental development of girls may be slightly ahead of that of boys. This will smooth out later, but for now the baby can start walking earlier or, say, naming words.
Norms of speech development in the second year of a baby’s life
Assessing a child’s speech at one year of age is very problematic: the guidelines for its development are very arbitrary and a delay in speech activity is acceptable. You can give approximate norms at the end of the second year of life:
- the baby answers simple questions;
- he can carry out a simple order, for example, take a cup to his grandmother, give him an item or a toy;
- the child easily repeats simple phrases and simple words after adults;
- all vowels and most consonants are available to its pronunciation;
- by the age of one and a half years, the baby combines two words into a sentence, and by two years, he constructs a sentence of 3–4 words;
- he actively and on his own initiative enters into communication with other children and familiar adults;
- he can ask a question using intonation;
- the child is able to pronounce at least 50 words, more often 200–300;
- begins to use singular and plural nouns (cube - cubes), diminutive suffixes (house - house);
- he can understand and follow two-step instructions: “Take the spoon on the table and take it to dad”;
- the baby can show two or three parts of the body or more;
- listens to nursery rhymes, fairy tales, poems, tries to remember small pieces.
If in the list above you see an item that your baby does not meet, it is worth closely observing the child, assessing whether he strives to communicate with others, whether he understands speech addressed to him. It is possible that the baby has a slight delay in speech development.
Nimble fingers
Training fine finger movements has a great influence on the development of a child’s active speech. This phenomenon has long been known to psychologists and speech therapists. And they never tire of repeating how important it is to develop fine motor skills. A variety of finger games, manipulations with paper (it can be torn into small pieces, crumpled, crumpled), and unscrewing and tightening the lids on cans and bottles will help with this.
As always, an inexhaustible resource in this regard is an ordinary kitchen. My child, for example, really liked hiding small toys from Kinder Surprises in a bowl of dry peas or lentils, and then finding them by touch (be careful, Kinder Surprises often contain small parts that, of course, should not be given to the baby). The peas gently massage little fingers, and the baby receives many pleasant tactile sensations. Try it yourself!
You can draw with your fingers on a tray on which a thin layer of flour or semolina is sprinkled. You can play with cotton swabs, taking them out of the jar one at a time and then putting them back in. You can attach colorful clothespins to a plastic jar or box, and then unhook them and throw them into the same jar.
Look around, and perhaps you will find a new interesting and useful activity for your little one.
Stage one: first words
From a year to a year and a half, the baby begins to move very actively in space and accumulate new experiences. This experience is necessarily reflected in speech development.
Usually the first words appear at the age of 9.5 months - 1 year 6 months. Most often they designate the closest people: mother, father, woman, uncle, aunt. The baby can easily reproduce onomatopoeic words: aw-aw (dog), tick-tock (clock), mu-mu (cow), etc. Often, instead of a whole word, a child pronounces an initial or stressed syllable (ko instead of cat or bura instead of Cheburashka). But since these “words” mean specific things and are pronounced in a certain situation (at the sight of a cat or Cheburashka), we can call them words, and not random syllables.
It has been noticed that some children “love” nouns denoting objects and people more, while others prefer verbs associated with social interaction – “go away”, “want”, “give”, etc.
The first words have a broad generalized meaning. However, this is not at all the generalization that we are used to when calling a doll, a bear and a ball as toys. For now, the child singles out one feature and combines a variety of things based on it. So, the word “yum-yum” is used by a one-year-old child to describe all kinds of food, as well as the dishes from which he is fed. When he gets hungry, he also shouts “Yum-yum!” (=I’m hungry!), and when he sees a teenager chewing gum on the street, he comments: “yum-yum” (=eating).
Little Lisa used the word “una” (moon) to call all round-shaped objects - pancakes, round spots on window glass, circles in books, postmarks on envelopes, round embossed frames on book bindings, the letter “O”. And Fedya decided to generalize the sounding objects. The word “ko-ko”, which at first in his dictionary meant a crowing rooster, Fedya began to call the sounds of a violin, piano, accordion, any music and musical toys. Texture can also become a general principle: the word “woof-woof” was used by Katyusha not only for a dog, but also for all furry animals, soft slippers, and even a photograph of an old man in a fur coat.
