Age: Birth to four months
Visual Skills
At birth, a baby can see light and patterns, but any object beyond eight inches is blurred. Even at five days old, infants prefer looking at faces over anything else. Vision gradually becomes clearer and the eyes start working together. Eye-hand coordination begins to develop as the infant begins tracking moving objects with the eyes and starts reaching for objects, first by chance and later more accurately. By eight weeks, they begin to focus their eyes on the eyes of a parent or other person near them. From a gray world at birth, two-month-olds can distinguish some reds and blues from white. By four months, color vision is similar to an adult's.
Things To Do
- At night, use a night light in the baby's room so he or she will have something to look at upon awakening.
- Change the crib's position (and the baby's position in it) frequently so the child can respond to light from different directions.
- During the first two months, hang a bright, colorful mobile outside the crib for variety and movement. At about eight weeks old, move the mobile over the crib.
- Keep reach-and-touch objects, large enough so they can't be swallowed, within baby's focus (about eight to twelve inches).
- Talk as you walk around the room so the baby can associate hearing and seeing.
- Provide things for the baby to look at but don't go overboard. Printed sheets combined with an abundance of toys hanging above and on the side of the crib can overwhelm an infant and actually slow visual development.
- Place the baby on his or her stomach for five or ten minutes at a time. After a few weeks, increase the frequency so the baby learns to raise his or her head up and look around.
- Dangle a toy or rattle a few inches above the baby and slowly move it up and down or around to encourage the development of eye tracking skills.
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Age: Four to six months
Control of eye movements and eye-body coordination skills continue to develop. The baby may become shy of strangers, miss a parent who leaves the room too quickly or be uneasy in strange surroundings.
Things To Do
- Hang a sturdy mobile, crib gym or various objects across the crib for the baby to grab, pull and kick.
- Give the baby plenty of "floor time" in rooms where other family members are active. Avoid using a playpen or crib for hours on end.
- Encourage the baby to help hold the bottle as it approaches the mouth.
- Play patty cake, moving the baby's hands through the motions while saying the words aloud.
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Age: Six to eight months
Eyes should focus equally. Most babies start crawling, which helps further develop eye-hand-foot-body coordination.
Things To Do
- Provide freedom and a safe environment that the baby can safely explore.
- Play hide-and-seek games with toys or your face to help the baby develop visual memory.
- Pick up toys your baby drops from the highchair and permit him or her to repeat the process. This allows him or her to develop the skills needed to release and throw things.
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Age: Eight to 12 months
Babies can now judge distances fairly well and throw things with precision.
Things To Do
- Name objects when talking to encourage the baby's word association and vocabulary development skills.
- Let the baby manipulate the pages of sturdy cardboard books.
- Provide small objects for your baby to handle, but not so small that he or she can swallow them.
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Age: One to two years
A child's eye-hand coordination and depth perception should be well-developed. Now is the time for parents to help the child refine and further develop vision skills through use.
Things To Do
- Roll a ball back and forth to help the child track objects with the eyes.
- Give the child building blocks, balls of all shapes and sizes, even a zipper. Playing with small objects boosts coordination of fine motor skills and small muscle development.
- Let the child ride a rocking horse or four-wheeled toys and wagons that can be straddled and pushed with the feet to strengthen eye-hand-foot coordination.
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Age: Two years old
Children this age are highly interested in exploring their environment and in looking and listening.
Things To Do
- Read or tell the child stories. This stimulates the child's ability to visualize and paves the way for learning reading skills.
- Give the child drawing and writing materials to develop visually-directed hand movements.
- Allow plenty of time for active outdoor activities.
- Provide the child with bean bag or ring toss games, toys requiring hammering of pegs, toys requiring sorting of shapes and sizes, puzzles and building blocks to further hone hand-eye coordination skills.
Source: American Optometric Association
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Four to six months
Six to eight months
Eight to 12 months
One to two years
Two years old |