Care Courses Blog

As a child­care provider, you are tasked with track­ing children’s devel­op­ment, report­ing progress and con­cerns to par­ents, and plan­ning activ­i­ties to pro­mote skill devel­op­ment. Ever wish there were an eas­i­er way to keep up with devel­op­men­tal mile­stones? Well … there’s an app for that!

The CDC’s free Mile­stone Track­er app is meant for par­ents and ear­ly child­hood teach­ers to use to track and sup­port children’s development.

The Track­er app includes 

• Inter­ac­tive mile­stone check­lists for chil­dren ages 2 months through 5 years
• Pho­tos and videos to help par­ents and care­givers rec­og­nize milestones
• Tips and sug­gest­ed activ­i­ties to pro­mote skill development

Along with that, the app can help parents

• set reminders for appoint­ments and devel­op­men­tal screen­ings, and
• rec­og­nize when to seek an eval­u­a­tion for ear­ly inter­ven­tion services

Fur­ther­more, the CDC’s “How to Get Help for Your Child” tip­sheet rec­om­mends that par­ents use the Mile­stone Track­er app, and write down their ques­tions and con­cerns to dis­cuss at their child’s next doc­tor visit. 

Encour­age the par­ents of the chil­dren in your care to down­load the CDC’s FREE Mile­stone Track­er app from the Apple App Store  or Google Play . 

Tracking Children’s Development: Infants 

The CDC’s Mile­stone track­er app is a use­ful tool if you are car­ing for infants in childcare. 

The pho­tos and videos in the app can be used to show exam­ples to par­ents or cowork­ers as you explain the skills that infants typ­i­cal­ly devel­op with­in cer­tain age ranges. 

For instance, you can use the app to show an exam­ple of the four-month-old phys­i­cal mile­stone of push­ing up onto elbows and fore­arms. While dis­cussing an infant’s social-emo­tion­al devel­op­ment, the app’s pho­tos and videos of 6 month olds look­ing at them­selves in the mir­ror and laugh­ing may be a use­ful ref­er­ence. When describ­ing a 9 month old’s cog­ni­tive devel­op­ment, you can refer to the video of an infant look­ing for a toy after he drops it out of sight. 

Addi­tion­al­ly, the app includes videos of 1 year olds wav­ing “bye-bye” and say­ing “mama” and “dada” as exam­ples of typ­i­cal lan­guage development. 

More­over, the app sug­gests activ­i­ties that you can engage infants in to help pro­mote their skill devel­op­ment in each domain. 

Tracking Children’s Development: Toddlers    

The CDC’s Mile­stone Track­er app is also a help­ful ref­er­ence if you are car­ing for tod­dlers in childcare.

The Mile­stone Track­er app includes pho­tos and videos of many sig­nif­i­cant mile­stones typ­i­cal­ly reached between the ages of 12 and 36 months, and pro­vides sug­gest­ed activ­i­ties to pro­mote toddler’s skill development.

With­out a doubt, children’s skills increase dra­mat­i­cal­ly dur­ing tod­dler­hood. It is a won­der­ful time of growth and devel­op­ment. Tod­dlers go from tak­ing a few steps to run­ning and climb­ing! They go from utter­ing their first words to speak­ing in short sen­tences! They even go from pick­ing up fin­ger foods with a pin­cer grasp to using a spoon! 

Addi­tion­al­ly, tod­dlers are begin­ning to devel­op impor­tant self-help skills such as assist­ing with dress­ing. Many tod­dlers even start the process of toi­let learn­ing. 

Of course, there are some chal­lenges and frus­tra­tions in tod­dler­hood (includ­ing bit­ing), but that is all part of the grow­ing and learn­ing process. 

Tracking Children’s Development: Preschoolers    

The CDC’s Mile­stone track­ing app pro­vides many exam­ples of mile­stones typ­i­cal­ly met between the ages of 3 and 5 which are help­ful to rec­og­nize if you are car­ing for preschool­ers in childcare. 

Preschool includes a range of ages dur­ing which chil­dren devel­op many new skills. A major area of growth for preschool­ers is social emo­tion­al devel­op­ment. Between the ages of 3 and 5, chil­dren move through dif­fer­ent stages of play and learn a lot through oppor­tu­ni­ties to inter­act with their peers.

The CDC’s Mile­stone track­ing app includes videos of preschool­ers demon­strat­ing increased social skills such as

• show­ing an aware­ness of dan­ger, 
• being a helper, 
• adjust­ing behav­ior to fit dif­fer­ent environments 
• show­ing con­cern for others.
• doing sim­ple chores, fol­low­ing rules

You can view videos or pho­tos from the app along­side par­ents to help them under­stand the goals and expec­ta­tions chil­dren are work­ing toward in a preschool environment. 

Most impor­tant­ly, when you are observ­ing, record­ing, and assess­ing children’s devel­op­ment, it is impor­tant to remem­ber that some chil­dren devel­op more slow­ly than oth­ers. Most will catch up with peers in their own time. How­ev­er, if your obser­va­tions con­sis­tent­ly reveal that a child in your care is not meet­ing mile­stones with­in typ­i­cal age ranges, arrange a meet­ing to dis­cuss this in a sen­si­tive and car­ing way with their par­ents. Share fac­tu­al infor­ma­tion, such as exam­ples from the CDC’s Mile­stone Track­er App.

Want to learn more about the cru­cial devel­op­men­tal mile­stones chil­dren expe­ri­ence from birth through age 6? Take our course, Child Devel­op­ment and Guid­ance. The course also includes guide­lines for devel­op­men­tal­ly appro­pri­ate cur­ricu­lum plan­ning and goals for children’s development. 

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