Understanding early childhood cognitive development milestones is crucial for child care center staff, preschool teachers, daycare directors and child care center owners. These milestones help evaluate children’s progress, identify any potential developmental delays and design appropriate learning activities to foster growth!
What Are Cognitive Development Milestones?
Cognitive development milestones are key skills that children typically achieve as they grow. These skills reflect their capacity to think, learn and solve problems.
Monitoring these milestones can provide insights into a child’s mental progress and help educators tailor their teaching strategies accordingly.
Cognitive Milestones for Infants (0-12 Months)
Birth to 3 Months
- Recognition of familiar faces and objects.
- Tracking objects with their eyes.
- Exploring with hands and mouth.
4 to 7 Months
- Understanding cause and effect, such as shaking a rattle to hear the sound.
- Object permanence begins to develop, which is knowing an object still exists even when out of sight.
- Responding to facial expressions and recognizing different tones of voice.
8 to 12 Months
- Imitating gestures and sounds.
- Exploring objects in different ways such as banging, shaking.
- Finding hidden objects easily.
Cognitive Development Milestones for 2-Year-Olds
- Recognizing names of familiar people, objects and body parts.
- Sorting shapes and colors.
- Engaging in simple pretend play such as feeding a doll.
- Following simple instructions and understanding the use of everyday objects including phone and spoons.
Cognitive Development Milestones for 3-Year-Olds
- Playing make-believe with dolls, animals and people.
- Completing puzzles with three or four pieces.
- Understanding the concept of “two” and beginning to count.
- Recognizing and naming most common objects and pictures.
Cognitive Development Milestones for 4-Year-Olds
- Recalling parts of a story and predicting what will happen next.
- Understanding the concept of same and different.
- Counting up to 10 or more objects.
- Drawing a person with two to four body parts.
Cognitive Development Milestones for 5-Year-Olds
- Understanding the concept of time such as yesterday, today tomorrow.
- Recognizing and writing their own name.
- Following directions with two or three steps.
- Counting 10 or more objects and understanding basic quantities.
Cognitive Development Milestones Chart
For a quick reference, here’s a cognitive development milestones chart summarizing the key skills for each age group:
| Age Group | Key Cognitive Skills |
|---|---|
| 0-12 Months | Recognition, object permanence, cause and effect |
| 2 Years | Recognizing names, sorting shapes/colors, pretend play |
| 3 Years | Make-believe play, completing puzzles, counting |
| 4 Years | Recalling stories, understanding same/different, counting objects |
| 5 Years | Understanding time, writing name, following multi-step directions |
Use Curriculum to Promote Cognitive Development
Cognitive development progresses quickly in the first five years of life and it’s vital child care centers have a strong curriculum in place that is designed for young learners.
The 2024 Child Care Management Software Industry Trends Report from Procare Solutions found that about 30% of survey respondents said each teacher spends between three and five hours a week doing lesson planning and a similar percentage noted their centers create their own curriculum:
This kind of time means teachers may not be able to focus on the five developmental domains, educators and parents can provide a balanced and supportive environment that nurtures all aspects of a child’s growth.
Procare Early Learning powered by Learning Beyond Paper is an all-digital curriculum specifically designed to meet the unique needs of educating children from infancy through pre-kindergarten.
It embeds Learning Beyond Paper’s early childhood curriculum, which was designed by educators with decades of combined experience, into Procare, making it easier and less time-consuming for busy teachers and administrators to provide high-quality education.
With Procare Early Learning by Learning Beyond Paper, child care centers can:
- Equip teachers with state-of-the-art online curriculum at their fingertips
- Dramatically reduce the amount of time spent on lesson planning each week
- Offer children a high-quality, developmentally appropriate curriculum
- Save money with this cost-efficient solution that’s integrated with Procare
This curriculum can be used in ALL child care center classrooms, with 52 weeks of lesson plans and thousands of daily activities for infants, toddlers, preschoolers and pre-kindergarteners.
Learning areas include STEAM, language and literacy, physical development, cognitive, music and movement as well as interactive reading. Plus, teachers get tips and tools they can use in real time.
Want to see how much time and money your child care center could save using Procare Early Learning? Enter your number of staff, number of students and type of program into our online calculator to find out!
Procare Cost and Time Savings Calculator Automated Payment Processing Cost & Time Savings Calculator Digital Curriculum Cost and Time Savings Calculator
Calculate your potential cost and time savings by using Procare’s all-in-one child care management software. All we will need from you is some information about your child care location*: Calculate your potential cost and time savings by using Procare’s secure and effortless child care payment processing. All we will need from you is some information about your child care location*: Calculate your potential cost and time savings by using Procare’s classroom management. All we will need from you is some information about your child care location*:
* Our data model is based on our experience working with over 100,000 child care centers, before and after school programs and youth organizations since 1992.
Switching to will save you hours and a month!*
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We understand that smaller centers and in-home daycare providers are operating on a tight budget, and that is why we provide all these features for the affordable price of just $25 per month. Let us handle the business of child care so you can get back to caring for your children.
To learn more about Procare home version, click below.
*Please note that the report you see only factors in cost and time savings for the in-home solution features. For Procare home version users that are interested in seeing how they can benefit from Procare’s full suite of capabilities, contact us today to speak to a Procare representative. *Please note that the report you see only factors in cost and time savings for the in-home solution features. For Procare home version users that are interested in seeing how they can benefit from Procare’s full suite of capabilities, contact us today to speak to a Procare representative. *Please note that the classroom management functionality is not available for in-home users. For Procare home version users that are interested in seeing how they can benefit from Procare’s full suite of capabilities, contact us today to speak to a Procare representative.
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Procare Cost and Time Savings Calculator
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