What are important cognitive milestones for my one year old?

It is important for a one year old to do the following:

• Explore objects in many different ways (shaking, banging, throwing, dropping)
• Find hidden objects easily 
• Look at the correct picture when an image is named 
• Imitate gestures 
• Begin to use objects correctly (drinking from a cup, brushing his hair, dialing a phone, listening to the receiver)

One-year-old children are curious about most everything and try hard to explore the world around them. A typical 12-month-old child will display the following cognitive milestones:

• explore objects in many different ways (such as shaking, banging, throwing, and dropping)
• find hidden objects easily
• look at the correct picture when an image is named (such as focus on a picture of a “dog” when asked)
• imitate gestures and sounds
• begin to use objects correctly (for example, drinking from cup, brushing hair, dialing phone, listening to receiver)

In terms of language skills, a typical 12-month-old will show these cognitive milestones:

• pay increasing attention to speech
• respond to simple verbal requests
• respond to “no”
• use simple gestures, such as shaking head for “no”
• babble with inflection
• say “dada” and “mama” although not always appropriately
• use exclamations, such as “oh-oh!”
• try to imitate words

This answer was created with the help of physicians at South Riding Pediatrics (www.SouthRidingPediatrics.com) and www.HealthyChildren.org