Social / Emotional

•Copies others, especially adults and older children

•Gets excited when with other children

•Shows more and more independence

•Shows defiant behavior (doing what he has been told not to)

•Plays mainly beside other children, but is beginning to include other children, such as in chase games

 

Language / Communication

•Points to things or pictures when they are named

•Knows names of familiar people and body parts

•Says sentences with 2 to 4 words

•Follows simple instructions

•Repeats words overheard in conversation

•Points to things in a book

 

Cognitive (learning, thinking, problem-solving)

•Finds things even when hidden under two or three covers

•Begins to sort shapes and colors

•Completes sentences and rhymes in familiar books

•Plays simple make-believe games

•Builds towers of 4 or more blocks

•Might use one hand more than the other

•Follows two-step instructions such as “Pick up your shoes and put them in the closet.”

•Names items in a picture book such as a cat, bird, or dog

 

Movement / Physical Development

•Stands on tiptoe

•Kicks a ball

•Begins to run

•Climbs onto and down from furniture without help

•Walks up and down stairs holding on

•Throws ball overhand

•Makes or copies straight lines and circles

 

 

Act Early by Talking to Your Child’s Doctor if Your Child:

•Doesn’t use 2-word phrases (for example, “drink milk”)

•Doesn’t know what to do with common things, like a brush, phone, fork, spoon

•Doesn’t copy actions and words

•Doesn’t follow simple instructions

•Doesn’t walk steadily

•Loses skills she once had