Developmental milestones by age 5
Developmental milestones or developmental indicators are a set of behavioural or functional skills thresholds that map the course of your child’s development. These behaviours are categorised into five domains – communication and language, physical and motor, social and emotional, adaptive and cognitive. Parents must keep in mind that India has great linguistic diversity, and children may have to be taught the same words in different languages. By age five, a child normally attains the following skills in each domain.
Developmental milestones by age 5 – Language Milestones
- Has a sentence length of four to five words
- Uses past tense correctly
- Has a vocabulary of nearly 1500 words
- Points to colours red, blue, yellow and green
- o Identifies triangles, circles and squares
- Understands “In the morning”, “next”, “noontime”
- Can speak of imaginary conditions such as “I hope”
- Asks many questions, asks “who?” And “why?
- Do activities that require sorting objects and things
- Make phone calls to extended family and let them talk
- Let your child help you plan activities such as the dinner menu
- Continue talking with them about their interests
- Read longer stories to them
- Let them tell and make up stories for you
- Show your pleasure when they come to talk with you
Developmental milestones by age 5 – Motor Skills Milestones
Gross Motor
- Walks backwards toe-heel
- Jumps forward ten times without falling
- Walks up and down stairs independently, alternating feet
- Turns somersault
Fine Motor
- Cuts along the line continuously
- Copies cross
- Copies square
- Prints some capital letters
Developmental milestones by age 5 – Social Skills Milestones
- Plays and interacts with other children
- Dramatic play is closer to reality, with attention paid to detail, time, and space
- Plays dress-up
- Shows interest in exploring sex differences
Developmental milestones by age 5 – Adaptive Skills Milestones
- Cuts easy foods with a knife
- Laces shoes
- Dresses self completely
- Ties bow
- Brushes teeth independently
- Crosses streets safely
Developmental milestones by age 5 – Cognitive Skills Milestones
- Plays with words: creates own rhyming words, says or makes up words having similar sounds
- Points and names four to six colours
- Matches pictures of familiar objects
- Draws a person with two to six recognisable parts, such as head, arms, and legs; can name or match illustrated parts to own body
- Draws, names, and describes recognisable pictures
- Rote counts to five, imitating adult
- Knows own street and town
- Has more extended attention span; learns through observing and listening to adults, as well as through exploration; is easily distracted
- Has increased understanding of concepts of time, part/whole relationships; function or use of objects
- Time concepts are expanding; can talk about yesterday or last week, about today, and about what will happen tomorrow