Watch Your Child's Intellect Develop

Watching your child’s intellect develop is incredible. Be on the lookout for these milestones.

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6 TO 8 MONTHS

As your baby’s memory and attention span develop, you’ll see more and more signs that he’s not only absorbing information, but also applying this newfound knowledge. His greater mobility allows him to experience more things. He starts actively manipulating objects around him. He realises that he can transfer an object from one hand to another and is starting to form a sense of events and displacement (items being moved). He is starting to understand patterns of behaviour and he can add up individual occurrences into a coherent series of events, over which he even has some measure of control! By endlessly experimenting with this exciting new concept, he starts to develop a sense of self that is separate from you, and that the external world is not simply an extension of himself.

Your clever baby is starting to grasp the important concept of cause and effect. He will probably discover it accidentally one day, perhaps by bumping a toy, and then hearing it make a sound. As soon as he begins to glimpse that he was responsible for causing the sound, he will start testing the fascinating theory that his actions have consequences. He’ll test your reactions by for instance dropping a toy and waiting for you to pick it up. By responding (picking the toy up and giving it to him), you are encouraging him to test his theories.

Your tot is curious and is interested in new toys, sounds, places, people and discoveries. He recognises familiar sounds and places and is starting to understand routines, by anticipating what comes next. He develops the beginnings of a sense of sequence – “before” and “after” are beginning to be understood.