In the first two years, humans grow more than at any other time of life. Growth and development is fastest in the first year. During this time, most full-term infants triple their birth weight and almost double their height. During the second year, most infants grow a bit more slowly than they did in the first year.
Most infants and young children look top heavy because their bodies continue to grow from the head downward and from the spine outward, a way of growing begun during the embryo stage. This kind of growth and development happens for about six years. There are three important kinds of physical development in the first three years: motor abilities, sensation and perception, and the brain.
During the first two years, an infant not only grows very quickly, but also develops motor abilities to move the body in many ways. At first, all of a newborn’s body movements are reflexes, responses the body makes quickly and automatically to something that happens. Reflexes are basic and evolutionary. Basic reflexes include activities such as sucking, breathing, swallowing, crying, shivering. These activities attract the attention of adults and increase the chances that the infant will receive proper care.
In the first few months after birth, the infant begins to develop motor skills, the ability to move and control the body. Motor skills are either gross or fine.
Gross motor skills refer to the ability to make large body movements and develop first. These include such activities as crawling, walking, jumping, running and climbing. A typical infant first learns to turn over, then to pull herself along with her arms, then she learns how to crawl by working her arms and legs together. By one year she can walk unsteadily on her own and by two years she can walk well and run. She can also coordinate her arms and legs enough to climb things. However, she still loses balance as her head, chest, back and arms take up much of her body length and her legs are short resulting keeping them apart to stay balanced. When she runs, she toddles and that is why the word “toddler” is often used to describe infants at this stage.
Fine motor skills refer to the ability to make small, detailed movements with the hands and fingers. These skills develop steadily with each new skill leading to another. At three months an infant waves her arms and legs. Around six months she grabs objects but does not let them go. At one year she lets them go to grab another nearby moving object. And, at two years she coordinates her muscles and eyes to catch and hold a large rubber ball. She can even use her thumb and forefinger to pick up the tiniest items.
How well motor abilities and sensation and perception develop in the first two years depends on both experience and growth. An important part of this stage is the growth and development of the infant’s brain.
Before an infant is born, each cell begins to take on certain tasks. Some cells become muscle cells, some become bone cells, some become skin cells and some become neurones, or nerve cells. Neurones carry signals to one part of the body to another and are very important parts of the brain. A typical neurone looks like a tree and consists of three parts: a cell body, an axon and a dendrite. The cell body contains the nucleus, a spherical part that stores chromosomes and other genetic material. The axon, which looks like a long thin trunk with roots at its end, passes information from the neurone to other neurones. The dendrites, which look like branches on the cell body, receive information from other neurons. When the tip of one neuron’s axon touches the tip of another neuron’s dendrites, a neural pathway is formed, and the information travels along it.
In the nine months before birth, only about one-quarter of the developing being’s neurons are formed. Many of these neurons are found in the brain, and they control basic functions like breathing, heartbeat, body temperature and blood pressure. At birth, an infant has all the nerve cells she will ever need in the brain. These cells allow the infant to receive information quickly and learn to understand what is happening in her surroundings. However, at birth three quarters of the infant’s neurones are still unfinished. They will not form pathways until the brain starts to receive information from the senses.
In the first two years of life, the brain truly acts like a sponge, soaking up new information and experiences. Infants develop many more neural pathways than they will need later in life. By the age of two, an infant’s brain can have trillions of neural pathways, twice as many as an adult’s. The tips of the dendrites grow, shrink, change shape, or die off completely, depending on what kind of experiences the infant has. That is why every experience a young child has is important for the growth and development of the brain.
Neural pathways that are constantly used become stronger and more connected and become integral parts of the brain. The more the neural pathways there are, the more a child can learn and remember. For example, when an infant listens to a story about cats and sees the words and pictures about cats in the book, her brain cells end out dendrites to join up with other brain cells. This joining makes many neural pathways of information. Some information will be about cats, but others will be about such things as reading, writing, and listening.
If parents and other adults read to the infant often then the child will likely find it easier to learn reading than a child who is never read to. However, as Montessori said so often, children learn to read best when they are ready to read. Many researchers now believe that this readiness to learn is as important as the formation of neural pathways because some neural pathways cannot in fact be formed until the brain has reached a particular level of growth and development. At that time, the brain responds very quickly to certain experiences. This is one reason Montessori often referred to sensitive periods as “windows of opportunity”.
After the sensitive period has passed, it is much harder for the brain to receive and organize that particular information. For example, at two and a half years old, a child’s brain may be particularly ready to learn the skills involved in putting together a simple wooden puzzle. She will naturally be drawn to work with such a puzzle if the opportunity is offered to her. If she is given the opportunity at this crucial time, she will likely learn to do the puzzle easily and quickly. In the process, her brain will likely form all kinds of neural pathways that will help her recognize shapes and spatial relationships in other objects that she encounters.
If the infant is not given the opportunity to work with the puzzle at this time, when she particularly interested and ready, she will likely need much more time, training, and practice to learn how to do the puzzle later. More importantly, perhaps, as she works with other objects in the meantime, she will not have the benefit of the skills and experience she acquired when working with the puzzle.
Great Minds ECC Team
Cognition refers to the mental processes involved in thinking, perceiving, and acquiring and organising knowledge. In the first three years of life, cognition develops in three ways: Sensorimotor intelligence, perception and language.
At our Montessori nursery for children aged 1 to 6, one of the most common questions we hear from parents is: “Will my child be ready for other schools if they start with Montessori?” The answer is a confident yes — and here’s why.
In today’s digital age, it’s more important than ever to offer children screen-free activities that support their development, creativity, and independence. At Great Minds nursery in we believe that young children thrive through purposeful, hands-on experiences—not screens.