Developmental Milestone for 4-Year-Old & Health Delay Signs
At this age, your child is developing confidence in their physical ability, as with their emotions.
They can be too bold or too timid, and still needs to be supervised during active play. Your 4-year-old should be running, hopping, throwing and kicking balls, climbing, and swinging with ease. Your preschooler’s fine motor skills are improving too.
Movement Milestones
- Skip, hops, and stands on one foot for up to five seconds
- Goes upstairs and downstairs without support
- Kicks ball forward
- Catch and throw a ball overhand
- Catches bounced ball most of the time
- Moves forward and backward with agility
Milestones in Hand and finger skills
- Copies square shapes
- Draws a person with two to four body parts
- Uses scissors
- Draws circles and squares
- Begins to copy some capital letters
- Dress themselves
- Able to fasten large buttons without help
- Pull up a zipper after it is fastened
- Build a block tower with 10 blocks
Language Milestones
- Understands the concepts of “same” and “different”, difference between fantasy and reality
- Has mastered some basic rules of grammar
- Speaks in sentences of five to six words
- Speaks clearly enough for strangers to understand
- Tells stories
- Sing Songs
Cognitive Milestones
- Correctly names some colors
- Understands the concept of counting and may know a few numbers
- Approaches problems from a single point of view
- Begins to have a clearer sense of time
- Follows three-part commands
- Recalls parts of a story
- Understands the concept of same/different
- Engages in fantasy play
Social and Emotional Milestones
- Interested in new experiences
- Cooperates with other children
- Plays “Mom” or “Dad”
- Increasingly inventive in fantasy play
- Dresses and undresses
- Negotiates solutions to conflicts
- More independent
- Imagines that many unfamiliar images may be “monsters”
- Views self as a whole person involving body, mind, and feelings
- Often cannot distinguish between fantasy and reality
Developmental Health Watch
Because each child develops in his own particular manner, it’s impossible to tell exactly when or how he’ll perfect a given skill. The developmental milestones listed here will give you a general idea of the changes you can expect as your child gets older, but don’t be alarmed if his development takes a slightly different course. Alert your pediatrician, however, if your child displays any of the following signs of possible developmental delay for this age range.
- Cannot throw a ball overhand
- Cannot jump in place
- Cannot ride a tricycle
- Cannot grasp a crayon between thumb and fingers
- Has difficulty scribbling
- Cannot stack four blocks
- Still clings or cries whenever his parents leave him
- Shows no interest in interactive games
- Ignores other children
- Doesn’t respond to people outside the family
- Doesn’t engage in fantasy play
- Resists dressing, sleeping, using the toilet
- Lashes out without any self-control when angry or upset
- Cannot copy a circle
- Doesn’t use sentences of more than three words
- Doesn’t use “me” and “you” appropriately
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