Birth to 4 months At birth, babies' vision is abuzz with all kinds of visual stimulation. While they may look intently at a highly contrasted target, babies have not yet developed the ability to easily tell the difference between two targets or move their eyes between the two images. Their primary focus is on objects 8 to 10 inches from their face or the distance to the parent's face. During the first months of life, the eyes start working together and vision rapidly improves.
Eye-hand coordination begins to develop as the infant starts tracking moving objects with his or her eyes and reaching for them. By eight weeks, babies begin to more easily focus their eyes on the faces of a parent or other person near them. For the first two months of life, an infant's eyes are not well coordinated and may appear to wander or to be crossed.
This is usually normal. However, if an eye appears to turn in or out constantly, an evaluation is warranted. Babies should begin to follow moving objects with their eyes and reach for things at around three months of age.
Depth perception, which is the ability to judge if objects are nearer or farther away than other objects, is not present at birth.
It is not until around the fifth month that the eyes are capable of working together to form a three-dimensional view of the world and begin to see in-depth. Although an infant's color vision is not as sensitive as an adult's, it is generally believed that babies have good color vision by 5 months of age. Most babies start crawling at about 8 months old, which helps further develop eye-hand-foot-body coordination. Early walkers who did minimal crawling may not learn to use their eyes together as well as babies who crawl a lot.
By 10 months of age, a baby should be able to grasp objects with thumb and forefinger. By twelve months of age, most babies will be crawling and trying to walk. Parents should encourage crawling rather than early walking to help the child develop better eye-hand coordination. Children this age are highly interested in exploring their environment and in looking and listening. They recognize familiar objects and pictures in books and can scribble with crayons or pencils.
Signs of eye and vision problems The presence of eye and vision problems in infants is rare. Parents need to look for the following signs that may be indications of eye and vision problems: Excessive tearing may indicate blocked tear ducts.
Red or encrusted eyelids could be a sign of an eye infection. Constant eye turning may signal a problem with eye muscle control. Extreme sensitivity to light may indicate an elevated pressure in the eye. The appearance of a white pupil may indicate the presence of eye cancer. What parents can do to help with visual development There are many things parents can do to help their baby's vision develop properly.
Birth to 4 months Use a nightlight or other dim lamp in the baby's room. Change the crib's position frequently and change the child's position in it. The data showed that, as they gain locomotor experience, infants come to rely more on visual information about how their movement is controlled relative to the environment. At the edge of a drop-off, much of this information is lost, thereby making the locomoting infants and adults wary you can see an example of a wary infant in this video from the Campos lab.
As such, infants who are delayed in locomotor experience — whether for neurological, cultural, or medical reasons — are likely to be delayed in showing avoidance of heights.
The researchers surmise that a period of fearlessness may encourage infants to explore their environment, helping them develop movement strategies and learn how to adapt to terrain. This is intresting, i realized recently that my 7 month old will not go past the edge of the bed. He is crawling and likes to sit on the bed with me but sometimes get crazy, im usually very worried and grab him alot. I let him go to see what he would do and to my suprise he was very mindful of the edge crawling vigorously over the bed he would stop and turn around each time.
Each child goes at his own pace. APS regularly opens certain online articles for discussion on our website. Effective February , you must be a logged-in APS member to post comments. By posting a comment, you agree to our Community Guidelines and the display of your profile information, including your name and affiliation.
For more information, please see our Community Guidelines. A conversation between Jennifer L. Eberhardt and Laura L. Carstensen about lengthening life expectancies, recasting the built environment, and rethinking social norms.
For example, an infant who has a three-dimensional view of his surroundings usually stops crawling at the edge of a dangerous drop-off, such as a flight of stairs. Of course, this doesn't mean that the infant doesn't need constant supervision to maintain safety.
He may stop crawling at the top of the stairs, but he doesn't yet have the mobility and coordination to get down the steps safely.
Allow an infant who is 5 to 8 months plenty of time to play on the floor and explore. Depth perception continues to improve as she crawls to objects at different distances. You also can hang a mobile or other objects across the crib. This helps your infant judge distances and fine-tune depth perception as she reaches out to grab objects. Your infant can develop rare vision problems at any age that can interfere with normal vision progression. Signs to watch for include excess tearing, eyelids that are red and crusted, continuous eye turning, a white pupil and extreme light sensitivity.
See a doctor immediately if you notice any of these signs.
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