small child

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Toddlers can usually walk but not yet dress themselves; most toddlers still need diapers

Toddler refers to the phase of a person's life between the ages of two and three, and in the legal sense less often up to the age of six or seven.

Children in the first year of life are referred to as " infants ", children in the fifth and sixth year as " preschool children ". Some authors classify the fourth year of life as toddler age, but most of them already count as preschool or kindergarten age.

Bodily development

height and weight

In the first two years of life, a child's short stature (height and weight) that results from development in the womb can be made up for. However, growth proceeds according to certain principles that are dependent on the weight and size of the birth , with the values ​​usually moving within a certain percentile . By the age of two, about four times the birth weight is reached.

Motor skills

In early childhood, children learn complex motor skills. After they usually get up and start walking by themselves by the end of the twelfth month, at the end of the eighteenth month they can go up stairs with handrails (follow-up step), walk backwards and eat with a spoon ; the ability to climb stairs in alternating steps follows in the third year of life. By the age of two, they can kick a ball from a standing position without holding onto and threading pearls.

Spiritual development

During the early childhood phase, the child learns social role behavior and language skills .

Up to the seventh month of life, the infant has a strong relationship with the caregiver, usually the mother. It is only from the age of twelve months that a distinction is made between oneself and the environment and the urge to move increases considerably. At the same time, the vocabulary, which grows rapidly with one to two years, is expanded. It initially contains object, then activity and ultimately property descriptions.

At the end of the ninth month the children imitate sounds and say their first words between the twelfth and eighteenth months. The toddler forms first two-word sentences at the earliest at 15 to 18 months, but regularly at two years of age. However, there are pronounced early starters and equally pronounced late starters. "The late speakers didn't even begin a year and a half ago, [...] while early speakers started using around 12 words at 10 months."

In the second and third year of life, the development of imagination and the formation of one's own will progresses. From around the age of four, the desire for independence and orientation to peers increases. Thinking becomes vivid and finds activity primarily in play .

health

Several fall into the infant and toddler phase (especially in the first year of life) vaccinations (eg against poliomyelitis , diphtheria , tetanus and whooping cough ) and medical examinations on to diseases prevent or to recognize mistakes and prevent. In Germany, these are summarized under child preventive medical checkups . Infections are common in infancy, especially from the time the children come into contact with other children (e.g. daycare). Most of these infections take the form of a cold or gastroenteritis (vomiting, diarrhea). The children often have a fever .

See also

Web links

Commons : Toddlers  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files
Wiktionary: Toddler  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Florian Steger: Aging in Life: Topoi of Age in Ancient Medicine? In: Dorothee Elm, Thorsten Fitzon, Kathrin Liess, Sandra Linden (eds.): Alterstopoi. The knowledge of the ages in literature, art and theology . De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2009, ISBN 978-3-11-020845-0 , pp. 108 ( side view in Google Book search).
  2. ↑ Wilfried de Nève, Wolfgang Presber (ed.): Ergotherapy: Basics and techniques. Urban & Fischer, Elsevier 2003, p. 384.
  3. ↑ Wilfried de Nève, Wolfgang Presber (ed.): Ergotherapy: Basics and techniques. Urban & Fischer, Elsevier 2003, p. 387.
  4. ^ Remo H. Largo: Baby Years. Piper 2008, p. 344.
  5. ↑ Wolfgang Butzkamm, Jürgen Butzkamm: How children learn to speak: Child development and human language. Francke 2008, p. 103.