Understanding and Thinking Curiosity and exploration are innate in children. From the moment they're born, they're constantly learning through sensory experiences—seeing, hearing, touching, tasting, and smelling.

Play is a crucial tool for learning, as it allows children to discover cause-and-effect relationships, understand object permanence (things still exist even when out of sight), and develop problem-solving skills. Encouraging exploration and play helps foster a child's cognitive development and natural curiosity.

Please also see Communication Skills for more information about early development because they can often tell us a lot about cognitive development in children under 2 years of age.

Between the ages of 1-2 years, your child will:

• Recognize herself in the mirror
• Begin to say ‘no’ to bedtime and other requests
• Enjoy dancing to music
• Imitate adults’ actions and words (e.g. chores)
• Understand words and commands, and respond to them
• Begin to match similar objects
• Recognize and find familiar objects in storybooks with some help
• Understand the difference between “you” and “me”
• Feel proud when doing things independently

Red Flags for Cognitive Development (2 years)

If you notice some of the following things by the time your child is 18-24 months old (2 years), you may want to talk to your doctor, or to another health professional such as an Infant Development Consultant, speech-language pathologist or an occupational therapist.

• He doesn’t understand the function of common objects (e.g. “find something you can eat”, instead of “find a cookie”)
• She doesn’t imitate other people
• He continues to mouth toys, or is only interested in feeling or watching toys instead of playing with them
• She constantly moves from one activity to another and is not able to stay at an activity for brief periods
• He requires constant attention to stay at an activity

Between the ages of 2-3 years, your child will:

• Understand simple stories
• Respond to simple directions
• Name some objects in a book
• Group objects by category (e.g. animals, clothing, food)
• Play pretend with dolls or stuffed animals
• Stack rings on a peg in order of size
• Put together simple puzzles (3-4 piece inset puzzles)
• Identify herself in a mirror, saying “baby” or her own name
• Tell others what he is doing
• Learn to count “1-2-3”

Red Flags for Cognitive Development (3 years)

If you notice some of the following things by the time your child is 3 years old, you may want to talk to your doctor, or to another health professional such as an Infant Development Consultant, speech-language pathologist, or an occupational therapist.

• She is not interested in pretend play
• He is not able to do basic categorization (e.g. “find all the toys”, “find all the clothes”)
• He doesn’t understand the function of common objects ( e.g. find something you cut with)
• He continues to mouth toys, or is only interested in feeling or watching toys instead of playing with them
• She constantly moves from one activity to another and is not able to stay at an activity for brief periods
• He needs constant attention to stay at an activity or finish something