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Child Development & Early Education vocabulary · Developmental Stages and Milestones

Infant

Meaning in child development & early education, with examples

/ˈɪnfənt/nounCore term

In child development & early education, infant means: A baby, usually a child in the first year of life; some services use the word for children up to about 18 months or two years.

In Turkish: bebek, süt çocuğu

How it is used

More formal than baby and used in research, health and childcare documents: infant feeding, infant sleep, infant room. In everyday talk with parents, baby sounds warmer and more natural.

Example sentences

  1. Infants learn a great deal by watching faces and listening to voices.

  2. The infant room takes babies from three months old.

Common collocations

  • infant care
  • infant room
  • infant feeding
  • newborn infant
  • toddlerA young child who has recently learned to walk, roughly between one and three years old.
  • primitive reflexAn automatic movement that newborn babies make in response to touch, sound or movement, such as gripping a finger, which normally fades during the first months of life.
  • attachmentThe deep emotional bond a young child forms with the main people who care for them, which gives the child a sense of safety and comfort.
  • sensorimotor stageThe first of Piaget's four stages of cognitive development, from birth to about two years, when babies learn about the world through their senses and movements.

More terms: Developmental Stages and Milestones

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