Cognitive Development: 9 to 12 Months

As your baby nears their first birthday, their cognitive development plays a crucial role in the interactions they will have with everyone. Your baby’s cognition is developing along with other skills that allow them to do so much more with their mind and body.

Your baby has already established the relationship between cause and effect from 6 to 9-months of age. Along with improving upon that skill, here is a list of the cognitive development that takes place between the ages of 9 to 12 months:

Finding and Tracking: Your baby’s improved vision allows them to track fast-moving objects like you running around the house to get stuff done. You can also try to move their favorite toys away from them and watch them use their eyes to track you doing that. This cognitive awareness also allows your baby to find objects that you are taking or hiding away from them. Peek-a-boo also comes in handy to help refine this skill of finding hidden objects.

Object Obsession: Your little one will become obsessed with exploring their environments and the objects around them. This allows them to learn to use objects for their intended purposes. It might start with experimenting every play in the book from pressing to pushing to rotating items and even hitting them, but eventually, they’ll understand that a brush is to comb, and a phone is to call. You play a vital role in developing this ability by demonstrating your baby the correct use of any object that might attract their interest. 

Observe and Learn: As a parent, you are watchful of your little one since day one and now your baby reciprocates this attention. They become observant of your movements and try to imitate them, even if they don’t fully grasp the nature of most of your actions. Turn this into a fun activity to enhance their cognitive ability by doing simple actions, repeating them, and then inviting your baby to join in on the party.

Matching Shapes: Provide them toys of different shapes while naming them. After repeating it a few times, you can see your baby start to recognize the different shapes of an object. This fun game helps build their spatial understanding.  

Pointing to Correct Body Parts: Pointing to the right feature on their face or your own works similarly to matching shapes. When your little one is curiously looking themselves in the mirror, use it as an opportunity to teach them different parts of the face by pointing them out. Repeat these gestures until they don’t think that nose is the ear.

Baby Remembers: Your baby’s implicit memories, i.e., unconscious memories are starting to form during this time. This means that they can remember familiar faces, songs, and even actions from their memory. This happens due to their proper cognitive growth as their brain continues to increase its neuronal capacity and connectivity to create and store memories.

As your baby nears their first birthday, they will have gained so much independence in terms of movements and controlling their own body. This is an exciting phase for your baby as they learn to interact more with their environment. Ensuring a safe environment for your baby to move around and explore is becoming increasingly important in this period and in the months ahead. Still, you’re probably a safety champ by now and well attuned to what might pose a risk for your little explorer!

The first birthdays are very special and as you get ready to celebrate your bundle of joy, you can see them become more aware of their environment with an understanding of how different objects function. An important part of their cognitive journey is your love and support along with lots of learning through play.

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• baby development
• cognitive
• cognitive development
• first year
• milestones
• toddler