At 1 year of age visual acuity is in the 20/50 range.  Eye-hand coordination and depth perception are continuing to develop, and by 2 years of age they should be well developed.  In addition to fine motor activities such as scribbling with a crayon, your child is now using his or her vision to coordinate gross motor activities and make judgments about them.

Children at this age are highly interested in environment, able to recognize familiar objects, interested in pictures in books, and are pointing to objects within reach and in the environment.   They are using visual cues to fit objects together and to match familiar objects.

Other Visual Milestones for 12-18 months:

• Recognizes a change in a familiar room or setting
• Locates a specific object from a group of dissimilar objects
• Locates a specific object against a cluttered background
• Points to objects
• Attends to birds and airplanes
• Points to, looks at or pats pictures in books
• Points to people
• Places rings on a cone
• Matches identical objects
• Looks in place where toy rolled out of sight
• Marks paper with large crayon or maker
• Nests two to three toys
• Assembles large pop beads

Other Visual Milestones for 18-24 months include:

• Recognizes self in photograph
• Matches simple, concrete shapes
• Locates specific pictures in books
• Imitates simple strokes

Strategies

• Roll ball back and forth to encourage tracking
• Read to your child and let him or her see what is being read and point out the pictures
• To improve eye-hand coordination, eye teaming, and depth perception provide opportunities for child to stack blocks, color, scribble and do simple puzzles
• Provide opportunities for child to climb and explore both inside and outside