– Between 4 and 5 months: One of the most important concepts a child will refine is the principle of cause and effect. Perhaps while holding a toy rattle he/she will hear that the rattle makes a noise when the child waves or hits it. When the child drops keys on the floor this may lead to disappearance of the object or even reappearance when the child sees the adult pick them up. It is important for children to learn about cause and effect and their own ability to influence their environment.

– Discovering Object Permanence: another major discovery that the baby will make during this stage of their life is that the object continues to exist when it is out of sight, this is called object permanence. Sometime from 4 months of age the baby will begin to realise that the world is more permanent than he/she originally thought. The child’s mother is the same person who collects him/her from her cot each morning and the teddy bear on the floor is the same one he/she hugged yesterday. The baby will carry on learning about the concept of object permanence for many months to come.

Right now your baby (typically) can communicate cognitive skills such as:

crying – to indicate hunger and other physical needs such as diapering, pain, and even boredom or fear. She has learned (many months ago) that there will be a response from her caretakers.

Expectation of response from repetitive actions- she may drop an object with the expectation that you will pick it up and return it to her. Play this game for several rounds. It is good for her brain. When you get tired the object can “disappear,” since she won’t realize what happened if you simply hide it behind your back.

Humor – babies this age do have a sense of humor and will laugh at facial expressions and funny sounds (just what sounds funny to her depends on her sense of humor.)

Her fine psycho-motor skills should also be emerging: she has (will soon) discover her pincher (thumb and forefinger) and that she can use it to pick up small objects. Put some cherrios on her high chair tray table. Let her hold a spoon while you feed her (keep the bowl out of reach until you are ready to end the meal and then let her “try her hand” at coordinating the spoon from bowl to mouth.) Neither of these skills can be taught. They are both a matter of maturation and physical readiness, as are crawling and walking.

Imitation – she may imitate sounds or expressions.

Get a child development book or research the topic on line. Read with caution. Don’t expect your baby to have reached every milestone or to do so by any time table. She is an individual. I suggest you not worry so much about cognition and just enjoy the baby by caring for her. Proper care and feeding, hugs, love, conversation, and play are really all she needs right now. You can’t make her into a genius. When it comes to that, both nurture and nature play significant roles. How intelligent is her gene pool on both sides?

your baby is trying to discover the word she is trying to get your attention as most babies are ego centric so she needs alot of praise and attention for the positive things she does. she is trying to communicate to you so she will be cooing….sing to her talk to her…this helps her learn new words…talk about colours, animals, EVERYTHING…babies absorb so much at this age, and although you may not think it they are learning alot! whenever she hears language that will help her develop more language later on in life