Important Milestones: Your Child at Four Years

How your child plays, learns, speaks, and acts offers important clues about your child’s development. Developmental milestones are things most children can do by a certain age.

What most babies do at this age:

Social and Emotional

• Enjoys doing new things
• Plays “Mom” and “Dad”
• Is more and more creative with make-believe play
• Would rather play with other children than by himself
• Cooperates with other children
• Often can’t tell what’s real and what’s make-believe
• Talks about what she likes and what she is interested in
  

Language/Communication

• Knows some basic rules of grammar, such as correctly using “he” and “she”
• Sings a song or says a poem from memory such as the “Itsy Bitsy Spider” or the “Wheels on the Bus”
• Tells stories
• Can say first and last name

Cognitive (learning, thinking, problem-solving)

• Names some colors and some numbers
• Understands the idea of counting
• Starts to understand time
• Remembers parts of a story
• Understands the idea of “same” and “different” •Draws a person with 2 to 4 body parts
• Uses scissors•Starts to copy some capital letters
• Plays board or card games
• Tells you what he thinks is going to happen next in a book
  

Movement/Physical Development

• Hops and stands on one foot up to 2 seconds
• Catches a bounced ball most of the time
• Pours, cuts with supervision, and mashes own food

If you have questions or concerns about your child's development, call Child Development Infoline at 1-800-505-7000.

SOURCE: CDC

Adapted from CARING FOR YOUR BABY AND YOUNG CHILD: BIRTH TO AGE 5, Fifth Edition, edited by Steven Shelov and Tanya Remer Altmann © 1991, 1993, 1998, 2004, 2009 by the American Academy of Pediatrics and BRIGHT FUTURES: GUIDELINES FOR HEALTH SUPERVISION OF INFANTS, CHILDREN, AND ADOLESCENTS, Third Edition, edited by Joseph Hagan, Jr., Judith S. Shaw, and Paula M. Duncan, 2008, Elk Grove Village, IL: American Academy of Pediatrics.