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First Words
At 9 months of age, Adelaide started to understand some words, and would use gestures to communicate. At 12 months, her vocabulary expanded to a few dozen words and was able to successfully pronounce her first word. Recalling the respective time ranges in infant language development, infants from 4-10 months typically begin babbling and using their hands for primary communication. By 12 monts, their verbal skills improve dramatically, such as being able to speak basic sentences. (pp. 156-157) -
Baby Scientist
When Adelaide was 15 months old, she started to examine her environment in greater detail and even perform experiments in her surroundings. This behavior lines up with Jean Piaget's proposed fifth stage of sensorimotor development, tertiary circular reactions, in which the young child will deliberately try different things with what's around them to see what their respective outcomes will be. (pp. 187) -
Categorization
As early as 19 months old, Adelaide has been able to sort her toys in categories such as their size or color. Categorization is another stage in infant development described by Piaget as being when a child is able to mentally place an object or image to a single, constant category while being able to add onto it and recall the information at a later time. This in turn becomes the basis for language development. (pp. 189) -
Secondary Emotions
At age 2, Adel began showing new emotions in the form of guilt and embarrassment upon making accidents she realizes she was responsible for, showing a greater sense of self awareness than before. These secondary emotions are called sociomoral emotions because of their influence on toddlers when they are taught the respective rights, wrongs and standards of their culture. (pp. 202) -
Night Terrors
One night when Adel, age 6, was sleeping, she abruptly woke up, screaming. When asked, she didn't seem all that responsive, simply mumbling incoherently and falling back asleep soundly. Researching this after the fact, it appears to be related to what are called Night Terrors, which are a common and more intense form of nightmares, but fortunately only last temporarily from ages 3-7 years.