Development of Children during First 2 Years of Life

Abstract Development is not limited to growing big instead it consists of progressive series of changes of an orderly, coherent type towards the goal of maturity. The present study was done on 194 children on longitudinal basis over a period of two years with an objective to assess development of children, determine the age of attaining developmental milestones and identify factors affecting development. The results revealed that development has a great deal of variation for average age of attainment in various items of milestones. Majority of these ages are comparable to Indian values but for some items Kashmiri children are late attainers. However, this in no means indicates that they are abnormal children. The age range of achievement of all milestones lies within 3rd and 97th percentile values. Better initial birth weight (growth), gender difference (male child) and literate and working mothers along with appropriate weaning practices in children was advantageous for attainment of development milestones.