Vision During Infancy and Toddlerhood

At birth, vision is the least developed sense because the visual system is structurally and neurologically immature, including underdeveloped retinas and optic nerves.

Because of this, newborns’ visual acuity, which is the sharpness and clarity of vision, is also low at birth.

This allows infants to see clearly only about 1 foot away.

However, vision improves quickly during the first few months as infants see and interact with their surroundings.

This happens as neurons in the eyes and brain strengthen, form new connections, and remove unused ones.

Additionally, color vision begins to sharpen by about one month.

Also, newborns initially have narrow peripheral vision that expands between 2 and 10 weeks.

Next, tracking of moving objects improves rapidly between 6 and 10 weeks.

Interestingly, infants prefer human faces over other objects and can distinguish between individual faces.

Initially, infants focus more on eyes, then shift their attention to mouths around 4 to 8 months during language learning, and then return to eyes by 12 months.