This website describes the 10 stages of play a child normally goes through by age 5.
http://www.autismteachingtools.com/page/bbbbfg/bbbbtj
Wow, what an answer! Thank you soooo much!Wow, that just really emphasized to me how wide a range that development can have. My dd (NT) is not all the way out of the "egocentric" phase - but if she is showing me something, she will turn it the right way so that I can see it the right way. For example, a picture in a book. She will come to me with the picture held out toward me and right-side up. She does this automatically. She also in the car will point to something and then say, Oh mama, you probably can't see it (she is on the other side of the car).
But, she is apparently emotionally insecure in that she still has major separation anxiety and starting pre-school is not something I'm terribly looking forward to - but is a definite necessity for her!
your very welcomeMy playgroup has 2 two-yo's, 2 almost five-yo's, and a three-yo girl. I understand girls are more advanced than boys. This little girl in my group is pretty advanced - she has older female siblings and copies them all the time.
hi hun
Physical
Children of about 3 ½ years of age have mastered basic motor skills like
walking and climbing and so on. At this stage their brains and bodies are
in the process of refining and consolidating what they can already do, so
they spend a lot of time doing things over and over again while they play.
They can ride a tricycle, run and jump. They can feed themselves
(although it can still be a messy experience!) and can use the toilet (with
some help). They've got most or all of their baby teeth by now and are
learning to brush them. They may be able to dress by themselves although
adults will need to help with fiddly things like fastening buttons and
shoelaces. Children at this age are usually around 3-3½ feet tall, weighing
between 25-45lbs. Their limbs are growing longer as they outgrow the
'squat-looking' toddler stage.
Intellectual
Children at this stage in their development have learned to speak quite
well and most of what they say makes sense. They probably know over 600
words (they're learning more every day!) and can talk in short sentences.
That said, they're still a long way from getting it right. At this age
children are in search of rules to help them make sense of the world and
you will quite often hear a child say something like "I throwed the ball".
This is in fact pretty smart because they have heard adults using
sentences like "you dropped it", so they assume that the rule for
describing something you've already done is to add "-ed" to the end of the
'doing word' (verb). In this case it's wrong (the verb 'to throw' is
irregular), but the rule will help them learn much more quickly than if
they had to learn each example separately.
At this age, children enjoy listening to stories and can follow a simple
storyline through pictures. They can name colours and objects and may be
able to count up to three things. They enjoy singing and repeating simple
rhymes. A child will understand the difference between doing something
'now' and 'later' although more complicated things like 'tomorrow' and
'yesterday' don't make much sense to them yet and they don't usually
remember things that have happened in the past. They are still gaining a
'sense of self' but already know whether they are a boy or a girl and,
often, how old they are. They enjoy figuring out differences and
similarities between things like pictures or people.
Emotional and Social
Children of around 3½ are learning that their actions can affect their
environment, and regularly seek attention and/or approval from
adults/caregivers. They love to make adults laugh, especially by being
silly. They often copy the behaviour of adults around them, especially
when this is centred on a particular activity like cooking or gardening.
Although they are only playing at it, the activity is helping to improve
the child's understanding of how the world functions. A three and a
half-year-old will probably have a million questions about what the
caregiver is doing, and many of these questions will almost certainly be
"why?", but they will also enjoy the activity for its own sake.
Children of this age don't yet play cooperatively with other children of a
similar age although they seem to be happy playing near them. They are
still too young to understand that other people do not see the world the
same way that they do (a stage the famous child psychologist Piaget
referred to as 'egocentrism'). While in principle they will understand
requests from an adult to "play nice", they are not yet good at sharing
because they don't understand yet why they can't have all of the stuff all
of the time. This is a great source of arguments between children at this
age ;)
Some more emotionally insecure children 3-4 years of age will experience
'separation anxiety' when left at a crèche or kindergarten for the first
time. However most children soon accept this state of affairs - as their
reasoning abilities grow, they come to realise that although the caregiver
has gone, they will return again soon.
I think that one of the most important things to remember with all of this
is that children develop in their own time - some children learn to walk
later, or to talk later, than others, and this hardly ever slows them down
in later life. All children are unique and develop at their own pace.
shell