Remember when your child was a baby? When you took note of their every first: first step, first smile, first time rolling over, first word? Although those first developmental checkpoints may be well behind you; as a caring parent, you still attend to predictable milestones to gauge your child’s physical, cognitive, and social/emotional development.
Developmental milestones are a set of functional skills or age-specific tasks that most children can do at a certain age range.
Developmental milestones offer important clues about a child's developmental health. Reaching milestones at the typical ages shows a child is developing as expected. Reaching milestones much earlier means a child may be advanced compared with his or her peers of the same age.